If Sparks Fly
by Joodiff
Summary: It's almost Christmas, but when Boyd and Grace come under threat from a name from the past, that's the last thing on either of their minds... T-rated for language. Complete. Enjoy!
1. Hare's List

**DISCLAIMER:** I own nothing

 _Happy 2018 Christmas/Festive Season to all! :) xx_

* * *

 **If Sparks Fly**

by Joodiff

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 **ONE - Hare's List**

Yawning as she watches the end of the late news, Grace glances at the clock on the nearby bookshelf. Not quite half past ten, and she's more than ready for bed. Mid-week tiredness catching up with her, for although she and her colleagues are not currently working on an active investigation, she's nevertheless been busy at work, tying up multiple loose ends and trying to get at least somewhere close to the bottom of her in-tray before the looming Christmas break. An extended break for her, too, this year, due to her stubborn insistence on booking holiday for the entire festive period. Despite Boyd's grumbling infuriation she has no intention of returning to the CCU's gloomy bunker before early January once her last working December day is complete. _He_ can spend time in his office between Christmas and New Year if he wants to, but she's not going to keep him company. Not this year.

The newsreader has finished her nightly soliloquy of doom, and now the weather forecaster, an enthusiastic young man with an earnest expression is gesturing at his map. A cold front is heading across the Atlantic, bringing the chance of heavy snow to at least some parts of the country. If there's more than a sprinkle in London, Grace will be very surprised, but there are still grim predictions of potential traffic chaos over the next few days. It's certainly cold enough for snow already, she reflects, prying herself up from the sofa, picking up her empty mug and carrying it through to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Not a night to be anywhere but at home in the warm. Rinsing the mug and leaving it on the draining board, she moves to check that the back door is locked. Part of her nightly ritual for as long as she can remember.

As she's switching off the kitchen light, the house phone in the living room starts to ring. Late calls are not unheard of given the nature of her job, but her colleagues, who are the main culprits, almost always call her mobile. Boyd certainly does, so she is more circumspect than usual when she answers, offering an almost hesitant, "Hello?"

"Doctor Foley?" a weary-sounding and vaguely familiar male voice says in reply. "Thomas Etheridge at the Home Office."

Etheridge. Fifty-something, balding, conspicuously unremarkable. Frowning to herself, she responds, "Mr Etheridge. What can I do for you?" _…at this hour._

"I'm sorry it's so late, Doctor," he tells her, as if she had spoken the second part of the sentence aloud, and a moment's chaotic background noise makes her suspect that he is calling from home, "but I'm afraid it's extremely important."

Words that never bode well in her considerable experience. Perching on the arm of the sofa, she says, "Go on."

"It's bad news, I'm afraid. Regarding Richard Hare."

A name Grace hasn't heard for many years. An involuntary cold prickle runs down her spine as dark, half-forgotten memories stir. Keeping her tone even, she asks, "What about him?"

The reply is prompt. "I don't know if you were aware, but he was recently transferred from Belmarsh to Wakefield."

Her heart starts to beat faster. "I wasn't aware of that, no."

"Let me reassure you immediately that he _is_ still incarcerated."

The comforting news is incredibly welcome, but the continued sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach is still very physical and very real. Swallowing hard, she asks, "But…?"

"I'm authorised to tell you that during a recent routine search his former cellmate at Belmarsh was found to be in possession of what turned out to be a coded list of names," Etheridge informs her. "On further investigation, it was identified as a list of five of the people who were closely involved in Hare's arrest."

"I see," Grace says, the sick feeling of creeping dread intensifying again, "and am I to assume that mine was one of those names?"

"I'm afraid so," he admits, continuing, "and as you may have gathered from the lateness of this call, the matter has… taken on a certain urgency."

"Mr Etheridge," Grace says, striving to keep her tone calm and level, "I really would appreciate it if you'd get to the point."

She can picture him nodding as he responds, "Of course. Sorry. I'm afraid that following, um, recent developments, it's been decided that the best course of action in the short-term is for you to be removed to a safe house."

Grace blinks, struggling to process the unexpected news. "A _safe house_ …?"

"A temporary measure only," he stresses. "Armed MPS protection officers are on their way to you right now. I can assure you that this is not a decision that's been taken lightly, Doctor. Your full cooperation would be appreciated – "

" – but is not, in fact, necessary," she guesses, knowing exactly how such situations are managed.

"It might be better not to look at it that way," Etheridge suggests. "My advice would be to go and pack a bag as quickly as possible, and to be prepared to spend at least a couple of nights away from home. It goes without saying that at this stage you shouldn't attempt to discuss the matter with _anyone_."

-oOo-

"DS Carl Spicer," the oldest and slightest of the three men standing at her door announces, holding up his warrant card for inspection. Unlike his two uniformed and visibly armed colleagues, he's dressed in a grey business suit that's mostly hidden beneath a black gabardine overcoat. Sharp-faced and pale-eyed, he has an incongruously deep voice. "I believe you've been informed of the situation, Doctor?"

"Come in," Grace instructs, opening the front door wide enough to admit her visitors. "If by 'informed of the situation' you mean 'had a brief call from the Home Office', then yes, I've been informed. What on _earth_ is going on?"

The three police officers traipse into the narrow hallway, one after the other, the younger two silent and vigilant. Spicer gives her a slight, apologetic smile. "I've only just been briefed myself, I have to admit. You're with DSI Boyd's cold case outfit?"

She nods. "The CCU, yes."

"CID have passed the matter over to us," Spicer tells her. " _My_ boss is trying to get hold of _your_ boss as we speak."

After three failed attempts at reaching Boyd, Grace is not feeling particularly charitable towards the man in question. She snorts. "Good luck with that."

"You don't happen to know where he is, do you?"

Struggling not to sound as irritable as she feels, she retorts, "I'm not his keeper, Sergeant. If he's not at home and not in his office, I have absolutely no idea where he might be."

"Friends? Family?" Spicer pushes. "Girlfriends?"

"He has a sister, Catherine, but she's often abroad," she informs him, and adds a grudging, "as for the rest, I'm afraid he's notoriously circumspect. He _was_ seeing someone a while ago, but I doubt she would be able to help you."

Spicer consults the notebook he extracts from an inside pocket. "Sarah Eisen?"

"Yes," Grace agrees, hiding her surprise. Clearly whoever Spicer and his as-yet unidentified superior are, they are well-informed. By whom, she's not sure. "American. Lives in New York."

"Yes, we've spoken to her. As you say, she wasn't able to help us." A shrug of slim shoulders. "Anyway, that's by the by. My chief concern at the moment is you, Doctor. Were you told to pack a bag?"

"I was, and I have, but before I consent to go anywhere, I'd like at least _some_ idea of what the hell's happening."

He nods, asks, "How much do you know?"

"Just that my name was found on some list connected to Richard Hare."

"Right, yes," he nods again, in agreement this time. "Hare's cellmate – _former_ cellmate – is connected to organised crime. Long-time enforcer for one of the major south London firms. He's currently doing a whole life stretch for double murder."

"And…?" she prompts.

"The list," Spicer says. "The first name on it was former DC Gail Hillier. She died last week, Doctor. House fire. The investigation is still ongoing, but the presence of an accelerant – petrol – has been confirmed."

Grace remembers Gail Hillier well. Bright, funny; very experienced. Wanted to buy a small cafe somewhere on the Sussex coast when she finally retired from policing. She frowns. "Well, that's terrible news, Sergeant, but it doesn't necessarily – "

"There's more," he interrupts. "The next name, PC James Arnold, was struck through. Arnold died in France – natural causes – at the end of last year. Next on the list was DS Paul – "

"Woodard," Grace says, an image of the big, genial man in question flitting through her mind. Always helpful, always cheerful. Two young children. Probably away at university or working themselves by now.

"Indeed," is the sober reply. "He was attacked on the doorstep of his own home late this afternoon. He died at the scene, I'm afraid."

The cold chill is back. "This afternoon?"

"I'm sorry." Quiet and apparently sincere. "Doctor, there's no easy way to say this, but – "

Her mouth is dry. "My name is next."

Spicer nods. "Yes. The final name is – "

"Peter Boyd," she finishes for him. " _DI_ Boyd, as he was then."

"Correct." Putting away his notebook, he says, "Our current theory is that Proctor – the cellmate – somehow ended up owing Hare a big favour. You know how things are in prison. We're guessing he's passed Hare's list onto one of his contacts on the outside."

"Who's now working his – presumably – way through the list of people Hare has a grudge against."

Spicer grunts. His extraordinary pale grey eyes study her intently. "Does that sound possible to you, Doctor? Professionally speaking?"

"More than possible," Grace confirms, thinking about her encounters with the man. "Hare's largely incapable of accepting responsibility for his own actions. When he was arrested, he claimed his victims died simply because they drove him to kill them."

A heavy frown. "Weren't his victims all teenage girls?"

Nodding, she says, "Almost all. We identified seven, but it was always believed he killed at _least_ three more, including one girl who was just eleven years old. That he'd want revenge on the people he feels were responsible for putting him in prison… doesn't surprise me at all."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Spicer says, "but wasn't the Hare case, what, fifteen years ago?"

"Sixteen," Grace tells him without hesitation, remembering the long, wet summer concerned. "'Ninety-two. We arrested him at the beginning of September. The trial was the following April."

"And he's really waited this long to…?"

"The length of time isn't important to someone like Richard Hare. The end result is all that matters to him. For that sort of personality, waiting for circumstances to arise that offer the very best chance of success is no hardship at all."

"Jesus," Spicer mutters. He thrusts his hands into the pockets of his long coat. "Well, if you're ready, Doctor, I think it's about time we got you out of here."

-oOo-

Grace has lived in London for long enough to know that the dilapidated, unprepossessing house they take her to is somewhere in Manor Park, an area of Newham not far from Wanstead Flats, but that's as far as her knowledge extends, and after being driven through multiple residential streets that all look broadly the same under harsh artificial lighting, she knows she wouldn't be able to accurately describe the route from her home. Once they are parked, Spicer gets out and opens the unmarked police car's rear passenger door for her, and she reluctantly struggles out into a December night that's turned bitterly cold, clutching the strap of her shoulder bag with numb fingers as one of the armed officers wordlessly retrieves her small suitcase from the vehicle's boot.

There are lights showing behind curtains and blinds in some of the street's houses, and one or two are displaying a twinkling string or two of fairy lights, reminding her just how close to Christmas it is, but there's little other sign of life. No passing cars, no pedestrians. The sound of a train thundering along its tracks not too far away reminds her that despite appearances they are still in one of the world's largest cities. Spicer leads the way across the empty concreted parking space at the front of the house that once would have been a small garden, and as they approach a battered-looking blue front door, he says, "Place is divided into two flats, both currently empty. You can move around as you please upstairs, Doctor; these guys," he gestures at the armed officers, "will be occupying the flat below you. Anyone wanting to go upstairs will have to go through them first."

"How reassuring," Grace mutters, following him into a small, dark hallway. There's a stout door to her left, and another straight ahead, both newer and much more substantial than the main front door. She watches as Spicer unlocks the one in front of them. He opens it to reveal a steep, narrow staircase.

"You won't need a key," he tells her, taking her suitcase from his colleague before switching on the stairway's light and leading the way upwards. "All the internal doors can be bolted, and there's an additional security chain on the main door."

"I'm assuming," she says, following him up into a square, unlovely room that features two mis-matched armchairs, a cheap grey sofa and a small television best described as recently obsolete amongst other unexceptional furnishings, "that I'm to consider myself more-or-less under house arrest?"

"You're not under arrest, Doctor," Spicer informs her, setting her case down and switching on more lights, "but attempting to leave the property at this stage would be… inadvisable."

She snorts, recognising the weary note authority in his voice. "'Inadvisable', eh? I've worked with the police on-and-off for thirty odd years, Sergeant; I think I know by now how this sort of thing goes."

"Bathroom," he says, ignoring her scorn as he opens doors in turn, "kitchen, bedroom. Second bedroom. Make yourself comfortable. If there's anything you need, ask one of the protection guys."

"I will," she agrees, a despondent sense of futility beginning to settle over her. The reality of her unexpected, rather surreal situation is becoming more and more difficult to ignore with every passing moment.

Spicer asks, "Do you have your mobile phone with you?"

Narrow-eyed, she nods. "I do."

"It's okay," is his hurried reply, as if he is anticipating immediate hostility, "you can keep hold of it. I have to remind you, though, to be extremely mindful of what you say to anyone you call – or who may call you."

She only just manages not to sigh. "I get the picture."

"I have to go," he says, sounding vaguely apologetic, "there are a lot of front doors that need knocking on overnight. Someone – either me or my boss – will be back to see you in the morning. You might hear the next shift arriving downstairs at around six; don't be alarmed if you do."

"I won't," Grace tells him. "Well, I suppose it's good night, then."

He offers her a slight, tentative smile. "Good night, Doctor. Please try not to worry too much. You're in safe hands."

It's nothing like as reassuring to hear as he intends, she's sure.

-oOo-

It's past midnight and exploration of her temporary quarters takes under five minutes, so all Grace can really do is switch off all the lights and retreat to the larger of the two bedrooms. The linen on the bed is clean and fresh, but the mattress is hard and lumpy, and she really isn't in the mood to relax, let alone to sleep, so she fidgets and frets, and startles at every little noise, real or imaginary. She tries to read the book she impulsively threw into her shoulder-bag at the last minute but finds herself reading the same couple of lines over and over again until they become completely meaningless. She gives up, glares at her silent phone, sets it aside, switches off the bedside lamp and tries again to settle.

She isn't aware of it, but she must start to doze, because when her phone _does_ start to ring, it causes her to sit bolt upright in bed, frightened and disorientated. Fumbling in the dark, she seizes the instrument and jabs at its tiny buttons. Her voice sounds thin and high as she says, "Hello…?"

"Doctor Foley?" a confident female voice replies. "DC Julia Carter. I'm downstairs. Could you come down, please?"

Too sleep-befuddled to ask questions, Grace staggers out of bed, pulls on the light dressing gown she's glad she had the forethought to pack, and heads out of the bedroom for the stairs. There's a spyhole in the robust door at their foot, and she peers through its fish-eye lens into the hallway beyond. The light is on and she can see a young dark-haired woman dressed in a thick padded winter jacket standing waiting. Behind her…

Boyd.

More relieved than she'd ever willingly admit to, Grace draws back the bolts and slips off the security chain. Opening the door, she can see that one of her armed escort from earlier is also present, standing beside an uncomfortable-looking dining chair that has appeared in the hall. Her gaze passes over him and settles on Boyd. He's bundled up in his long, dark woollen coat, the collar turned up, and he looks every bit as disgruntled as she feels, but before she can speak, he holds up a hand, "Don't ask, Grace. Just _don't_ bloody ask."

"DCI Marshall will call you, sir," the dark-haired woman says to him, "in the meantime, if you could…?"

The look Boyd gives the junior officer is withering, but to Grace's surprise, he does not bark at her. Instead, he simply shoulders his way past, a leather holdall dangling from his left hand. Giving ground to let him through, Grace raises her eyebrows at DC Carter. "I wasn't told to expect company."

"Sorry, ma'am," is the stoic reply, "I'm just – "

" – following orders," Grace finishes for her without any irony. "Yes, I know."

"Is there anything you need?" the woman inquires.

"Nothing that I can think of at this stage," Grace tells her. Hearing Boyd reach the top of the stairs behind her, she adds, "I do hope he wasn't _too_ obnoxious?"

Nothing in the other woman's expression changes. "All part of the job, ma'am."

Bidding the two officers good night, Grace closes and secures the door, then heads back up the stairs. She finds Boyd standing in the middle of the main room, surveying his surroundings with visible distaste. Eschewing a more conventional opening gambit, she wades in with an irritable, "Where the _hell_ have you been? Why weren't you answering your phone?"

His answering glare is baleful. "Cinema. That all right with you, is it?"

It's not the answer she was expecting. Not at all. "Cinema? You?!"

"What's wrong with that?" he demands. "Contrary to popular opinion, I _do_ have a life outside of work."

"Obviously," she says, as he starts to unbutton his coat. It still seems an utterly incongruous notion, Boyd settled in the dark with the popcorn-munching _hoi polloi_. Not quite as incongruous as the jeans and sweater that are revealed as he shrugs out of the coat and throws it over the back of the sofa. Just another bewildering thing in a night of bewildering things. She sits on the arm of the nearest armchair and asks, "So what's going on?"

Boyd is examining the meagre contents of the cheap bookcase listing drunkenly against the wall next to the old television. Mostly well-thumbed fiction of the less than literary type, Grace has already discovered. Turning his back on it, he says, "I doubt I know any more than you do. One minute I was looking forward to a quiet nightcap with a… friend, the next, I've got DAC Lambert on the phone telling me I'm going to be met and escorted home to pack a bloody bag."

A 'friend'. The word swirls through her mind for longer than it should. Frowning, she says, "I got a call from Etheridge at the Home Office. Same sort of thing." She hesitates for a second before adding, "Richard Hare."

Dark eyes abandon further examination of the room and settle on her. "Not a name I've ever looked forward to hearing again."

"Nor me," Grace agrees. Steeling herself for the answer, she asks, "Gail and Paul…?"

"Are both dead," Boyd confirms, his voice devoid of emotion. "Gail's partner is in hospital. Sixty percent burns. He's not expected to make it."

"Tragic," she says, meaning it wholeheartedly. What else is there to say? She takes a steadying breath, continues, "What happened to Paul? All they told me was that he was attacked on his own doorstep."

"Stabbed," Boyd says, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He holds her gaze with resolute calm as he adds, "He was still alive when the paramedics got there, but…"

A heavy, depressive silence falls between them. It makes the small room feel even more claustrophobic. Drawing her dressing gown tighter around herself, Grace says, "And you and I are next."

"If it's not all one huge, fucked-up coincidence."

"We don't believe in coincidence," is her quiet reply.

"No," he agrees, "we don't. Not in a situation like this."

"Sixteen years," she murmurs aloud. At the look Boyd gives her, she adds, "Feels like yesterday sometimes, doesn't it?"

He nods. "It does. You know me, Grace, I'm not easily spooked, but looking into Hare's eyes was like…"

"Looking into the abyss," she says, barely suppressing a shudder. She's never been able to forget some of the dark, gleeful things he told them when he realised that there was too much incontrovertible evidence against him for him to stand any chance of a jury believing any of his strident claims of innocence. "Professionally-speaking, I'm not supposed to entertain the idea that some people can be born evil, but…"

"Yeah," Boyd says, and she knows his thoughts are running in the same direction as hers. He'd been an experienced police officer even then, but there were moments when he'd looked every bit as shaken by Hare's lengthy confessions as she'd been. Moments when they'd looked at each other in stark silence, each knowing that in some way they were both being changed forever by the terrible things they were being told. Back in the present, he regards her for a moment, then turns to look at the two doors on his left. "Bedrooms?"

"Two," she confirms, glad to change the subject, "but I got here first, so…"

"You got to choose, and I'm stuck with whatever's left?"

"To be fair," she points out, "I wasn't told that you'd be joining me."

Boyd grunts. "Fairly sure that wasn't the initial plan, but then someone at the Yard worked out the cost of _two_ lots of armed protection working round the clock and decided we could just damn well rough it together."

"Lucky us."

"Cheer up," he tells her, prowling towards what she knows he's about to discover is the tiny, old-fashioned bathroom, "at least they didn't send us to that shithole in Dagenham. That really would have been too much to have to tolerate."

"Have you spoken to Spence?" Grace asks as he peers into the bathroom and makes a disgruntled noise.

"Briefly. He's been told to sit tight and man the fort pending further instructions from on high. He sends his regards." Shutting the door again, Boyd looks over his shoulder at her. "I'm paraphrasing. What he _actually_ said when he found out we were going to be shacked up together was to pass on his deepest sympathies. Cheeky bastard."

"None of this," she tells him, "in any way constitutes 'shacking up together', Boyd."

He tilts his head a fraction to the side. "No?"

Recalling a time when everything between them was so much easier, Grace feels a distant pang of regret. There's a noticeable… gap… in their friendship nowadays. An awkward, empty space that crept in when they were too busy angrily tearing into each other on a daily basis to notice. She hates it, has no idea what to do about it. She gives him a cool, measured look. "No. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed. Alone."

Boyd's answering snort is loud and exaggerated. "Is there any other bloody way?"

-oOo-

 _Cont..._


	2. Jigsaw Puzzle

**TWO - Jigsaw Puzzle**

What's left of the night is far from restful. At first there are distracting noises from beyond the closed bedroom door that indicate her unexpected companion is far from ready to settle, and when they eventually cease, Grace goes back to struggling to relax enough to let sleep take her. Too many thoughts, too much to worry about. Sometime after three exhaustion takes over and the world finally fades away, but she doesn't stay asleep. She wakes and frets, dozes off again, then wakes to repeat the cycle.

When resumed noise from the rest of the flat drags her into a reluctant state of full awareness, there's a cold sliver of daylight scything into the room through a gap in the curtain. Thin winter morning light, harsh and unwelcome. When closing her eyes and willing herself back to sleep fails, Grace forces herself to sit up and then to get out of bed. The room is chilly, and she shivers as she goes to the window to draw back the curtain a little to survey the outside world. The uninspiring impression of an unremarkable, anonymous residential street that she formed the night before doesn't change. There are a few less cars parked on the road and in front of houses, and she catches a brief glimpse of an elderly man walking a small grey dog, but otherwise…

She can hear Boyd's voice. Muffled enough for the exact words to be indecipherable, sharp enough to suggest that he is not in the best of moods. There's no answering voice to be heard, indicating that it's probably a telephone conversation she's overhearing. At least, she thinks, she can rely on him to pry as much information as possible about their situation from whoever he's talking to. There are times when his blunt impatience is incredibly useful. He's not a man to be easily fobbed off, even – or _especially_ – by his superiors.

Once again donning her dressing gown and pausing only briefly to glance at her reflection in the cheap mirror screwed to the wall above the tired, old fashioned chest of drawers set against the dividing wall between the two bedrooms, Grace heads out into the main room. In the cold light of day it looks even less homely and inviting than it did the night before. The ceiling is nicotine-stained, the grubby wallpaper is peeling, and there's a slight, underlying hint of damp that reminds her of a dilapidated student house she once occupied back in the late 'sixties.

Boyd is standing by the room's large solitary window, phone pressed to his ear as he stares out at the street. Listening hard to whatever it is he's being told, he spares her only the briefest of glances. The incongruous sweater has disappeared to reveal a crumpled-looking black tee-shirt, and his shoes are untidily abandoned beside the sofa. Grace can't decide if he's been to bed or not. He looks tousled and bad-tempered, and when he turns his head she can see the bristle of grey morning stubble on his cheek. Passing him without a word, she heads into the tiny kitchen, glad to discover that the limited supplies provided for them include both an unbranded box of teabags and a jar of instant coffee granules. There's milk, too, stowed in the small fridge, and further searching reveals a bag of sugar, a box of breakfast cereal, a sliced loaf, and both margarine and marmalade. Enough to create a passable breakfast, at least.

She's waiting for the kettle to boil when Boyd looms up behind her with an irritable, "Marshall's useless bunch of performing monkeys have put in half the front doors south of the bloody river overnight and yet have still managed to turn up precisely fuck _all_."

"And good morning to you, too," she says, holding up a chipped blue mug. "Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee," he growls. "How hard can it _possibly_ be? I mean, really? Proctor's hired muscle for the bloody _Baileys_ , for God's sake. You'd think the O'Dowds or the Walkers would be falling over themselves to point the finger in the right fucking direction."

"Dennis and Jack Bailey?"

"How many other Baileys do you know?" he demands.

"Well – " she starts.

"You _know_ what I mean," Boyd interrupts, "don't be deliberately obtuse, Grace. It's too early in the bloody morning."

"It's gone seven," she points out. "Pass the milk, will you?"

"Yeah, well," is the tetchy reply, as the cardboard carton requested lands heavily on the counter next to her, " _some_ of us haven't been to bed yet."

"Whose fault is that?" Grace asks, successfully openly the sealed carton without spilling the contents. "Oh, do get out of the way, Boyd – there's barely room to swing a cat in here as it is…"

He glowers, but takes a step back, ending up in the doorway. " _Two_ sugars."

Pausing with teaspoon in the air, she asks, "Since _when_?"

"Since I _said_ so. Why are you so damned cheerful?"

"I'm not," she says, adding a second spoonful of sugar to the blue mug, "I'm just in a better mood than _you_."

"Well, it's infuriating."

"Here," she says, thrusting the mug towards him, "drink that, and don't bother speaking to me again until you've regained your usual sunny disposition."

"Funny," Boyd mutters, but he takes the mug and slopes away, leaving Grace to finish making her tea in peace. She briefly considers making toast, too, but decides against the idea. If she makes enough for both of them, she risks setting a dangerous precedent, and if she doesn't…

Returning to the living room, she settles herself on the grey sofa and inquires, "So?"

Back at the window, Boyd glances round at her. "'So'…? So, what?"

She refrains from rolling her eyes at him. Just. "So, what are we supposed to do? Just sit tight?"

"Apparently." He sounds every bit as disgusted by the idea as he looks. "When I tried to go out earlier, it was made very clear to me that leaving the premises is not an option."

Grace frowns. "Go out? Why?"

"Fancied a walk."

"A walk," she echoes, not believing him for a moment. "At the crack of dawn? In December?"

"Why not? I hate being cooped up."

That much is true, she knows. Another reason why Boyd is considered such a controversial commander for the CCU – his stubborn refusal to stay permanently at headquarters diligently dealing with all the unit's administrative tasks as befits someone of his rank while his junior officers do all the leg-work. There's a reason why he deliberately spent so many years as a DI, refusing to court further promotion, and everyone knows it – and it has nothing to do with any lack of ambition or ability. Sipping her tea, Grace watches as he returns to his morose contemplation of the outside world. Eventually, she inquires, "Good film, was it?"

"Eh?"

"Last night? The cinema?"

"Oh." He doesn't look at her. " _L'Atalante_. The restored version."

"Good Lord," she says, not bothering to hide her surprise. "Jean Vigo?"

"Yeah."

"That's a bit highbrow for you, isn't it?"

"The Disney thing was sold out."

Sixteen years Grace has known him, and she's still not always able to tell whether he's joking or not. Like her, Boyd has eclectic tastes in a great many things, including entertainment. Music, art, literature, they've debated them all over the years, sometimes finding common ground, sometimes not. Idly studying the back of his head, she inquires, "And did your 'friend' enjoy it?"

She's not altogether surprised by the quick, sideways glance he gives her. Nor by the way he stresses the pronoun as he replies, " _She_ did, thank you for asking."

He's an inveterate ladies' man, in his own, quiet way. Always has been. Much of his enjoyment, however, Grace deduced a long time ago, lies in the thrill of the chase. Actually maintaining a long-term, healthy relationship generally seems to present him with the kind of challenges he's too capricious and too impatient to deal with. Either that, or he really does repeatedly choose the wrong women as she's frequently heard him bemoan. In reality it's probably a complex combination of the two factors. Reflecting briefly on her own chequered history of failed relationships, she says, "But you didn't get your nightcap."

"Or anything else that might have been on offer," he adds, shaking his head. "Jesus, sometimes I think I might as well just give up and become a bloody monk."

"Poor Boyd," Grace says, with no sympathy whatsoever. "Well, I'm sure you can charm your way back into her good books if you try hard enough."

"Assuming I don't end up burnt to a bloody crisp, or face down on the pavement with a knife in my back."

Wincing, she says, "For heaven's sake… Could you _be_ any more insensitive? People have died, Boyd. Good people."

He turns to face her, a sharp spike of anger colouring his tone as he growls, "You think I don't know that? Gail was a damn good friend, and Woodard was one of the best sergeants out there. Bar none, Grace. Bar fucking _none_."

She holds up her free hand in a placatory gesture. "All right, all right. I'm sorry."

Boyd glares at her for a moment longer, then grunts and turns away again.

Not in the mood to fight with him, Grace finishes her tea, sets her empty mug down on the cheap wooden coffee table and announces, "I'm going to go and have a shower."

There's no overt response. Then, she didn't really expect one.

-oOo-

By the time Grace is dressed and doing what she can with the limited quantity of cosmetics she quickly snatched together while packing the preceding night, the distinctive smell of fresh toast is permeating through the flat. Her stomach rumbles in response to the tempting aroma and she realises for the first time that she's hungry. Getting to her feet and smoothing down the long olive-green cardigan that she hopes will combat the worst of the winter chill, she wonders if Boyd is creating breakfast for one, or for two. Hoping for the latter, she concedes that the former is more likely. He's every bit as self-sufficient as she is, maybe even more so, and nowhere near as inclined to consider the people around him when he's preoccupied.

Opening the bedroom door, she wonders how long they're going to be confined together. Hopes it will be hours rather than days or, God forbid, even longer. She likes him – rather more than he knows – but history has repeatedly proved that the longer they're in close proximity the more likely it is that they will start to bicker over the kind of pointless things that lead to explosive and very real differences of opinion. They get along far better when they can walk away from each other before things turn ugly. She's self-aware enough to know that Boyd's quick-tempered intolerance is only part of the problem. She has her flaws, too, and her life-long inability to ever let someone have the last word in an argument that has always scraped across his nerves has never mixed well with his stubborn refusal to give ground easily. On _anything_.

"Toast," he announces from the sofa as she emerges, waving vaguely at the coffee table.

Hiding her pleased surprise, Grace murmurs her thanks and heads for the nearest armchair. Plain toast stacked high on a large central plate, margarine and marmalade in dutiful attendance ready to be deployed as required. From the copious number of crumbs on one of the two smaller plates, Boyd has already devoured his own share with some gusto. He regards her with placid indifference as she opens the jar of marmalade and picks up the used, sticky knife resting on his plate. No point in increasing the number of items needing to be washed. Spreading a thick layer over first one, then two pieces of toast, she says, "Do you think they'll bring us a turkey if we're still here on Christmas Day?"

"We won't be," he tells her, obviously not in the mood to banter.

"We might be."

"We _won't_ be," he insists.

"You're sure about that, are you?"

"Yes I am. For two reasons." Boyd helps himself to yet another piece of toast and plucks the jar of marmalade away from her. "One, Jacky Bailey is a lot of things, but he's not a cop-killer, and he won't welcome the extra attention that being associated with one will bring to his door. Proctor's small fry, easily given up."

"Makes sense," Grace agrees. She chews for a moment, swallows, then inquires, "And two?"

"Joyce will nail my balls to the bloody floor if I'm not in Hampshire in time for Christmas lunch."

Amused, she says, "I see. Like that is it?"

"Yeah." He doesn't look at her as he loads marmalade onto his toast and adds, "It's the first Christmas since… Well, you know. I don't stand a cat's chance in hell of being allowed to spend it quietly on my own."

 _Since Luke_ , she thinks. The first Christmas since Luke's death. Of _course_ there's no way his formidable step-mother will let him stay in London, alone and brooding. Grace is quite bold enough to say, "Well, good for Joyce."

"I somehow thought you'd approve." His tone is dry.

"I do," Grace agrees, and at the quick dark look he gives her adds, "Christmas is a time for families, Boyd. It will do you no good at all to sit alone in that big empty house of yours thinking about – "

"Who said," he interrupts, "anything about being on my own?"

"You did," she says, a little too triumphant. "'…A cat's chance in hell…'?"

Outwitted, Boyd scowls. "Shut up, Grace."

"Anyway," she continues, neither cowed nor offended, "once you're there, you'll enjoy every minute of it."

"Think so?"

"Know so. All that fresh air, Joyce and Cathy running around after you…"

He snorts. "You _have_ met my sister?"

"Well, just Joyce, then," she amends in answer to the rhetorical question. Catherine Lloyd, divorced like her brother, is not, admittedly, the sort of woman to run around after anyone, male or female, let alone after the annoying kid brother she still somehow manages to view Boyd as. With both her own children grown-up and living abroad, and her ex-husband living somewhere in Scotland with his much younger second wife, Catherine seems to return to their childhood home far more frequently than her brother, even though their indomitable father has been dead for the better part of a decade. Both born in London, they were raised from a young age at their stepmother's family home just south of Lyndhurst only returning to the capital in adulthood. Grace doesn't know about Catherine, who she's met just a couple of times, but Boyd only has a couple of vague, sketchy memories of his late mother. She wonders, sometimes, what that feels like.

"What about you?" the man himself asks, the abrupt question disturbing her contemplation.

"Me?" Grace frowns. "Oh. Christmas, you mean? I didn't… don't… have any plans."

"Not heading back up to barbarian country this year?"

"I thought about it," she admits, "and my sister-in-law was quite keen, but…"

Boyd gazes thoughtfully at her but seems to decide not to press the matter. He grunts. "Families, eh?"

"They're lovely people," she assures him hastily, as he crunches his toast, "and I know I'd be made very welcome, but… Oh, I don't know. The longer we're apart, the less we seem to have in common."

"Yeah, there's nothing quite like discussing serial murder over a family meal for causing an awkward silence, is there?"

Allowing a wry smile, Grace nods. "And the worst thing is, it seems so completely normal to us, doesn't it? Talking about that sort of thing, I mean."

"Nature of the job," Boyd says, brushing toast crumbs from his fingers. "You know as well as I do how statistically rare serial killers are, but not if you're dealing with _decades_ of unsolved crimes."

"We'll never get to the end, will we?" she muses, caught in a moment of reflection. "Doesn't matter how many cases we solve, we'll never get to the end."

"Jesus," he says, "you're a real little ray of sunshine this morning, aren't you?"

"I'm tired," she admits, "and not altogether happy about the thought that someone out there wants to kill me. We don't all have nerves of steel, Boyd."

"I can't say I'm over the moon about it, either, but much as I hate to admit it, we're probably in the best place. Those guys downstairs don't fuck about, Grace. If at any point they think we're in imminent danger, they'll shoot first and ask questions later. That's what they're trained to do."

"Mm." A thought occurs to her. "You're still an Authorised Firearms Officer."

Boyd's expression becomes guarded. "I am. Under protest, as you well know."

"Well, why aren't you armed, then?" she asks, hoping it doesn't sound too much like an accusation.

"Who says I'm not?"

Grace studies him for a moment, trying to gauge his sincerity. Boyd does not like guns. Chooses not to go armed in situations where he justifiably could, something Spencer, for one, has never understood. Not making the words a challenge, she says, "You're not, are you?"

Boyd holds her gaze. "It wasn't offered as an option."

"And you didn't request it."

"If Proctor's man can get through two officers armed with MP5s…" He doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't need to.

-oOo-

Accompanied by Carl Spicer, DCI Marshall arrives just before noon. A solid, imposing man who looks more like a soldier than a police officer, he reminds Grace a little of her long-dead grandfather. The same quiet, confident manner, the same unshakable calm. He's polite to them both, but there's nothing deferential in the way he deals with Boyd, despite the other's marginally senior rank. Calm, patient and utterly intractable, he says, "I know my team, and I know they'll get a result. I'll be questioning the Bailey brothers myself shortly. We _will_ find the killer."

"Jacky's the one you need to lean on," Boyd tells him, pausing in his restless prowling. "Dennis is vicious, but he hasn't got the bloody sense he was born with. He won't see that it's to their advantage to help us."

"With all due respect," Marshall says, his tone glacial, "I think I know how to handle scum like the Baileys."

"Do you." It's not a question. "Well, I spent well over six years at Deptford nick right in the middle of their patch, _Chief Inspector_ , and I can tell you now, if you go in to interview them with that attitude, neither of them will say a bloody word. Jacky's old school. Treat him with a bit of respect and he might – just _might_ – take care of the problem for us."

Marshall's reply is curt. "That might be how you do things in the CCU, Boyd, but the rest of us aren't prepared to – "

"I think," Grace cuts in, well-aware that Boyd's hackles are rising, "that what DSI Boyd is trying to say – "

"Ma'am," Marshall interrupts, "my orders come straight from DAC Lambert, and they do not include conspiring with known criminals."

"'Conspiring'," Boyd mimics with a derisive snort. "Take the fucking broom out of your arse for a moment, Marshall, and you might just see that getting the Baileys to play ball is the best option we've got. If they put the word out that they're not happy about one of their associates going freelance, the people who actually know something will start talking to us."

Buried in the depths of her cardigan pocket, Grace's phone starts to ring. Both men glare in her direction as she fumbles to retrieve it. The little display is illuminated, and it bears the simple legend 'Eve L'. Glancing at Boyd as she stands up, she says, "It's Eve."

"Eve?" Marshall queries with a frown.

"Eve Lockhart," Boyd informs him. "Our pathologist and forensics expert."

"I should talk to her," Grace says, getting to her feet. "I'll go in the bedroom."

"Doctor Foley – "

"Leave her," Boyd interrupts. "She knows what she can and can't say."

Marshall doesn't subside. "That may be, but – "

"I _said_ ," Boyd repeats, more than a hint of steel in the words, "leave her. Go on, Grace."

Sparing him a quick, grateful smile, she retreats to the bedroom, answering the call as she closes the door. "Eve."

"Grace," the other woman's clearly relieved voice says in her ear. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," she says, moving to the window to look out at the street, "or, at least, doing okay. Under the circumstances."

"I won't ask you where you are, but please tell me you're safe?"

"We are," she says, watching a grey-haired woman jostling numerous festive-looking carrier bags into the open boot of a waiting car. Christmas presents for the grandchildren, perhaps?

"'We'?" Eve sounds surprised. "Boyd's with you?"

Even though it's pointless, Grace nods. "I'm not sure he's enjoying it much, but he is, yes."

A dedicated smoker's throaty chuckle is followed by, "I can imagine. You're both all right, though?"

"We are," she repeats. "We've got a couple of armed protection officers looking after us."

"Oh, I bet he's delighted about that, isn't he?"

Grimacing, Grace says, "He hasn't stopped moaning about the fact that they wouldn't let him go out to stretch his legs earlier."

"Poor you," is the prompt and heartfelt response. "Someone from Scotland Yard has been in to brief Spence, but the rest of us have been told not to ask too many questions."

"I'm not surprised." Adept at hearing all the things that aren't being said, she adds, "Don't worry, Eve. The situation is… in hand. We shouldn't be here too much longer. I hope."

"Is there anything you need?" Eve asks, ever-practical. "I'm sure we can get stuff to you through Spencer and whoever it is he's been told to liaise with."

Tempting as it is to reel off an extensive list of home comforts, Grace shakes her head. "No, not at the moment. I had a chance to pack the bare necessities before they picked me up last night. If things do drag on, though…"

"Call me if you need anything," Eve replies. Someone, possibly Spencer, says something indecipherable in the background and she adds, "Look, Grace, I'd better go. We've been told to keep any calls as brief as possible."

"I understand." Quelling a sudden stab of melancholy, she adds, "Eve?"

"Yes?"

Trying to sound both confident and matter-of-fact, Grace says, "Tell everyone not to worry. Everything's going to be fine."

Eve's response is an unconvinced-sounding, "Of course it is."

-oOo-

"What," Boyd demands, emerging mid-afternoon from the small second bedroom where he retreated for a short nap not long after their meagre lunch, "is that?"

Grace doesn't bother glancing round at him. "It's called a 'jigsaw', Boyd."

"Haha, very funny." He drops heavily onto the sofa next to her. "I _know_ it's a bloody jigsaw, Grace. I can _see_ it's a bloody jigsaw. What I meant _was_ , where did it come from?"

"Found it under my bed," she says, batting away his hand as he reaches for the stack of blue pieces neatly piled to the left of the partial framework of edge pieces she's working on. "Don't interfere. I have a system."

"Dear God," he says, withdrawing his hand, "is this what my life's come to? Stuck in a cruddy flat in the arse-end of nowhere watching someone else fuck up the Eiffel Tower."

"I am not 'fucking up' the Eiffel Tower. I'm doing rather well, thank you. If you want to do something useful, sort out all the bits that look as if they're part of the Champ de Mars."

"Do I look like someone who's in the mood to do a bloody jigsaw?"

Sitting up a little straighter, Grace switches her gaze from the jigsaw pieces strewn across the coffee table to her companion. His dark eyebrows are drawn down in a forbidding scowl, and he looks petulant at best. She shrugs. "Suit yourself."

Boyd gets up again, walks across to the window. The light is beginning to fade from the winter sky, and he glares out at the world in accusing silence. Grace watches him while pretending not to. He doesn't cope well with boredom and inactivity, and if she knows him half as well as she thinks she does, it won't be long before his limited patience runs out altogether. What will happen when it does, she's not sure. He will shout, because he always shouts, but there is nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to do. Sifting through jigsaw pieces, she waits.

It's a full two minutes or more before he says, "Hare killed Rhonda Weekes at Christmas, do you remember?"

She does. The pretty seventeen-year-old was Hare's fourth confirmed victim, and she died some seven months before Grace joined the massive police operation launched to find the so-called 'Merton Murderer'. She remembers – vividly – being shown the gruesome crime scene photos in the tiny, windowless office from where Boyd was running the investigation. Aloud, she says, "He dumped her naked body in the park in the early hours of Boxing Day. Just left her there, lying on the grass."

"Mm." Boyd carries on staring out of the window. "We were in Dublin, staying with Mary's family. It was all over the news. Little did I know that five months later…"

"…another two girls would be dead, and you'd be leading the manhunt," Grace guesses. She stares at the piles of little cardboard pieces arranged before her, but barely sees them. "That poor girl's family. Losing a child at Christmas…" She doesn't finish the sentence, the crashing insensitivity of her thoughtless words rendering her silent as she realises…

Boyd doesn't move, doesn't look at her. Again, offers, "Mm."

"I'm sorry," she says, too-quickly. "I didn't mean… I wasn't trying to imply that…"

"It's all right." Tight, but calm. Resigned, even. "I know what you mean."

Grace takes a deep breath. Not knowing if she's doing the right thing or not, she says, "We could talk about it, you know, if it would help. It's not as if there's anyone around to interrupt or overhear."

Back still to her, he shakes his head. "No point. Nothing to say, is there? My son's dead, and all the talking in the world is never going to change that."

"It's not," she agrees carefully, "but it might help you start to come to terms with it."

"Don't, Grace." Finally, he does turn. "I know you're trying to… be kind, but… Well, it's just not my sort of thing."

There's no point in pushing him. None at all. She says, "I haven't forgotten the promise you made me."

From the look on Boyd's face, neither has he. His shoulders stiffen perceptibly. "I'm not shutting you out. I just don't want to talk about it. Any of it."

 _It will break you if you don't_ , Grace wants to scream at him, frustrated by his continued stubborn refusal to accept the help she's so qualified to offer. _Sooner or later, it will break you, Peter._ Instead, she goes back to staring at the incomplete jigsaw and mutters, "Whatever you think is best."

For a moment he remains still and silent, then he moves to the nearest of the two armchairs, settles himself and says, "When I was a kid – must've been the Christmas of 'fifty-eight – I broke my arm out riding."

Attention caught by the sudden bizarre revelation, Grace looks up. "Riding? _You_? You don't ride."

"Used to," he tells her, fingers of one hand drumming idly on the arm of the chair. "Joyce's father was a Verderer, and she's still an agister to this day. There were always horses and ponies around. Anyway, that year we went out for a ride on Christmas Eve. Me, Cath, and Joyce. Don't know where my father was. Up in London, maybe. We had a couple of New Forest ponies at the time, me and my sister. Tough little beasts. We were amusing ourselves by racing each other up and down one of the bridleways while Joyce talked to someone she knew. I was doing my best to overtake Cath, and the next thing I knew, I was flying through the air."

Eyebrows raised, she says, "You fell off?"

"At full belt," he tells her, straight-faced. "Pony stumbled; must've slipped in the mud, or something. I don't remember hitting the ground, only lying there staring up at the branches and the sky. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything. Completely bloody winded. Then the pain started. I knew straight away I'd broken my damned arm."

Grace can't picture it. Can't imagine him as a child. "What happened?"

"Cath caught the pony, Joyce picked me up and dusted me off. Clipped me round the ear for being so stupid, too. Idiotic thing to do, she said. Lucky I didn't break my damned neck."

Sighing, Grace says, "Don't tell me – you ended up spending Christmas in hospital?"

Boyd's grin is as quick as it is unexpected. "Well, that was my biggest fear, you see. Lied my head off, told everyone I was absolutely fine. By Christmas morning my arm was black and blue and swollen up like a balloon." He holds his left hand up, stares at it thoughtfully. "Seems I never did know what was good for me."

"Ah," she says, finally understanding the point of the tale. "Well, you're not a kid anymore, Boyd, and telling everyone that you're fine when you're not isn't brave, it's stupid and potentially very dangerous. Like galloping full-tilt along a muddy track. So _then_ what happened?"

He closes his fist experimentally, as if testing the limb it's attached to. Apparently satisfied, he lets his arm drop. "Spent the next two days in Southampton Hospital. It was a bad break and they had to operate. I have a forearm full of metal pins to remember that Christmas by."

"You're your own worst enemy," Grace tells him, shaking her head. Her own distant childhood memories are stirring though, and it suddenly strikes her how little they really know about each other's past given the length of time they've been friends. Almost grudgingly, she asks, "Do you want to hear about my worst childhood Christmas?"

Boyd is watching her with a reflective sort of curiosity. "Go on."

"I was six," she says, returning her attention to the jigsaw pieces, "and I got whooping cough. My mother had four other children to look after, including a new baby, so my father decided I'd be better off at my auntie's. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing to do, but at the time… Well, I felt as if I'd been sent away because I was sick and no-one wanted to look after me. My auntie lived in Blackburn. Too far away to make visiting easy. We didn't have a car. I remember crying myself to sleep every night for a week."

"Hard for a kid to understand," Boyd says, his voice usually soft. "Well, I think that trumps my broken arm."

"Auntie Vi didn't celebrate Christmas," Grace continues, momentarily lost in the past, "though I never did find out why. To her, it was just another day. She let me have the present my parents had left for me, of course, but that was it. Just another long day spent lying in bed wondering if I was ever going to be allowed to go home. Ever since then… Well, I've always tried to make Christmas a bit special."

"And yet," he says, unnerving her with his acuity, "you haven't made any plans."

She shrugs. "Just as well, the way things are going."

"I _told_ you, Grace, we're not still going to be here at Christmas."

"I wish I had your confidence."

Boyd gets to his feet, ambles the short distance to the sofa and says, "Shove over. Two people can fuck up the Eiffel Tower a lot faster than one."

-oOo-

 _Cont…_


	3. Tweedledum and Tweedledee

**THREE - Tweedledum and Tweedledee**

The kitchen is far too small. That's Grace's considered opinion as she turns away from the stove and once again collides with her self-appointed sous-chef. The kitchen is too small, and he is far too large. Exasperated, she says, "Do you _have_ to lurk? I _am_ capable of cooking pasta, you know."

"I'm not lurking."

"Well, what else would you call it?"

"Being helpful?" he suggests, hands in pockets.

Grace gives him a scathing look. "To be helpful, Boyd, you have to do more than lounge about offering pointless advice."

"I'm not… Oh, have it your own way. Christ, I pity any poor bloke who ever decides to take you on."

"Because, of course, you're such a good catch yourself?"

His reply is smug. "It may surprise you to know that there are at least a couple of women out there who seem to think so."

"Including whatever-her-name-is from last night?" Grace asks, deliberately ingenuous.

"Zahra," he supplies, and adds, "she's a solicitor. From Nairobi."

"Really?" She's not sure why the information startles her.

"Really. Don't look so bloody surprised, they do _have_ solicitors in Kenya, you know."

"That," Grace tells him, turning back to the stove, "wasn't the surprise. I just thought you'd sworn off solicitors and barristers for life after that little contretemps with – "

Boyd doesn't let her finish. "She specialises in conveyancing, not in criminal law."

That, at least, makes sense. Deliberately casual, she inquires, "It's serious, then, is it?"

She doesn't see him shrug, but she's certain he does as he replies, "Not really."

It's a less brutal way of saying 'not at all', she guesses. Just another fleeting dalliance, another half-hearted attempt to find something – or some _one_ – to distract him, to briefly keep at bay all the pain and anger he has no idea how to deal with. Switching off the gas, she says, "This is ready. Find some clean plates, will you?"

They eat sitting together on the sofa, the television talking to itself in the corner. Four channels of early-evening banality, nothing worth watching. DS Spicer rings to update them but has no useful news to impart. The Bailey brothers have been interviewed and have both denied having any knowledge of who might have killed Gail Hillier and Paul Woodward. Gail's badly-burned partner is still alive, but only just, and Paul's wife is still far too shocked and traumatised to be properly interviewed. It's a depressing summary of a situation that hasn't changed very much at all in the last twelve hours. Neither of them reacts much to the concise briefing, preferring to dwell silently on their own thoughts. For the rest of the evening conversation is sparse; choked, perhaps, by the unmentioned sense of despondency hanging over the room. Boyd disappears downstairs briefly and returns sullen and tight-lipped, leading Grace to suspect that he has once again been denied permission to leave the building for even a few minutes. She wonders if their protectors would use force to stop him if necessary but doesn't dare pose the question aloud.

They yawn their way through the late news, argue briefly over the rights and wrongs of the latest political scandal, and then lapse into a neutral silence that stretches until Grace finally inquires, "Do you need the bathroom? I fancy having a bath before bed."

Looking up from the book he's been flicking through with measured disinterest, her companion shrugs. "No. Go right ahead."

She does so, collecting the things she needs before retreating to the bathroom. She can't decide whether to bolt the door behind her. Considering the ridiculous quandary, Grace wonders why she's suddenly incapable of making such a trivial, automatic decision. Can only be the stress of the situation, she decides. Her mind attempting to seize hold of what little control she has. It's interesting. Frustrating, but interesting. Settling into warm, foamy water, she makes a mental note to do some research into the psychological effects of unexpected confinement at some point. Idly counting the number of ceramic tiles on the wall facing her, she makes a concerted, conscious effort to relax. It seems to work, because she soon starts to doze, sliding gently in and out of awareness with no real grasp of the passage of time.

A peremptory rap on the door startles her fully awake. It's followed by a peeved voice demanding, "How much _longer_ are you going to be? You've been in there for well over a bloody hour, for God's sake."

Riled by the accusing tone, she retorts, "I wasn't aware that bathroom privileges were being rationed."

"I need a pee," Boyd announces, no discernible trace of embarrassment in his voice.

Sixteen years, she reflects, and it's the first time she's ever heard him admit to such an ordinary human weakness. "Well, perhaps you shouldn't have had that third cup of tea, then."

"Perhaps _you_ shouldn't be hogging the only bathroom. C'mon, woman, I'm really starting to suffer out here. Either you get out of the damned bath, or I'm going to resort to using the kitchen sink."

" _Boyd_."

"I'm serious," he warns.

Glaring at the tiled wall, she decides to call his bluff. If it proves to be a mistake, she is, after all, still cocooned in a decent amount of foam. "Door's not locked."

There's a short, pointed silence, one that's eventually broken by a bad-tempered, "I'll go and try my luck downstairs. I won't forget this, Grace. You just _wait_ until the next time we're on a long drive and you want me to stop at the next bloody services…"

Smirking, Grace listens to the sound of him stamping away, then sits up and reaches for the bar of soap resting on the side of the bath. Sometimes small victories can be every bit as sweet as large ones.

-oOo-

"Grace." An urgent voice in the dark. "Grace, come on, wake up."

Heart pounding as she slams awake, Grace reaches blindly for the old-fashioned bedside lamp. A moment's fumbling for the switch is rewarded by a sickly yellow glow that illuminates the man crouching by her bed and not much else beyond. Boyd. Boyd, unkempt and shirtless, his expression tight. Struggling to make sense of the situation, she manages, "Wha…?"

"We're leaving," he tells her. "There's a car waiting."

That, at least, she understands. Sitting up, she says, "They've found the killer? Oh, thank God."

But Boyd shakes his head. "No. There's no time to explain. Get dressed and pack your stuff up. Quick as you can, Grace. No dawdling about or stopping to put your face on."

She may not always know when he's joking, but she knows when he's serious. Knows when to accept whatever he says without argument or complaint. Whatever's happened, it's bad enough to send him barrelling into her room in the middle of the night without a single thought about propriety or professional boundaries. He seems to uncoil rather than straighten up, rising quickly to his full height as she struggles to kick the covers away from her bare legs. His chest is smooth and broad, the lamplight picking out the shadowed lines of his ribcage.

"Tell me," she says.

"Jack Bailey's dead. Stabbed, just like Paul."

"What? But – "

"No time," Boyd says again, heading for the door. "You've got five minutes, Grace."

As he leaves the room, she picks up her watch and peers at the tiny Roman numerals. It's just past three-thirty.

-oOo-

"Proctor's life is worth shit now," Carl Spicer says from the front passenger seat as the unmarked police car sweeps through the near-deserted streets. "Bringing trouble to the door is one thing, but _this_ …"

Cold, disorientated and, yes, genuinely frightened, Grace clings tightly to the worn leather strap of her shoulder bag. "I still don't understand why it affects _us_."

"Because Dennis is a nutjob," Boyd tells her, "and don't bother chewing me out for calling him that, Grace. He's a complete fucking psycho. Jacky's the only reason he's never gone down for murder."

"He's right," Spicer chips in, leaning round in his seat to look back at them. His striking pale eyes appear almost silver in the low light levels. "If it had been the other way around, you'd have been quite safe, Doctor, but Dennis doesn't stop and think the way Jack does… _did_. Dennis will only see that his brother's dead because of _us_."

"And if anyone's got the means to find out where we've been safely tucked away, it's the bloody Baileys," Boyd says.

Frowning, Grace argues, "But that makes absolutely no sense – blaming us for what happened to Jack."

"I _told_ you," is the irascible reply, "Dennis is playing with at least a dozen cards short of a full deck."

She winces at the blunt description. "Do you really have to, Boyd? I mean, really?"

"There's a time and place for political-bloody-correctness, Grace, and this isn't it. Dennis is a complete nutter. A nutter with a forty-year history of violence and intimidation to his name. He makes his brother look like a fucking choirboy in comparison."

"And if Dennis starts looking for you," Spicer adds, "he won't be subtle about it. If you'd stayed at the flat, half the villains in London would have known where you were within a couple of hours – including whoever killed Hillier, Woodard, and Jack."

Grace opens her mouth to protest, then closes it again, her answering words left unspoken. Organised crime is not her field of expertise, has never interested her. The little she does know has been acquired only by necessity. There's no point in arguing with two very experienced police officers who know much more about such things than she does. Noticing that the road signs they are passing have started to bear blue motorway legends, she asks, "Where are we going?"

"Place near Sheering," Spicer tells her. "We have a reciprocal arrangement with Essex. You should be safe there."

"'Should be'?" Grace echoes.

" _Will_ be," Spicer assures her, his voice firm. "This is all just a precaution, Doctor. We don't know for sure that Dennis is going to think past whoever actually stuck the knife in Jack. Even _he_ may draw the line at going head-to-head with armed police. We're arranging to keep an eye on him, of course, but…"

"…that might not be enough?" she guesses. Shivering, Grace tries to draw her coat tighter around herself. Not easy in the confined space with the seatbelt limiting her movements.

Boyd notices. To the two men in the front, he growls, "Turn the bloody heating up, will you? It's fucking _December_."

"Sir," the driver says, reaching out to do so.

It doesn't make any immediate difference. Grace is surprised and not a little grateful when Boyd shifts position next to her, bringing their bodies into closer contact. Even through his coat and hers, the reassuring warmth of his body is palpable. She murmurs her gratitude, goes back to staring out of the window as they join the almost empty motorway. The car's internal temperature starts to rise, but there's a cold knot in the pit of her stomach that just won't go away.

-oOo-

The 'place near Sheering' is an isolated cottage halfway along a rural lane more than ten minutes' drive from the village itself. Set back from the lane behind a tall, wild hedge, it's an anonymous silhouette against the dawn sky. A better sort of place to be than the Manor Park flat, Grace decides as the low growl of the car's engine dies away and Spicer gets out. Behind them, the unmarked police car that's followed them all the way from the flat also draws to a halt, but she's distracted by a sharp inrush of freezing cold air that makes her shiver again. She doesn't have time to dwell on it as Boyd hustles her out into the bitter early morning chill and shepherds her in Spicer's wake. Quite when he decided to appoint himself as her chief protector, she's not sure, but for once she's not inclined to argue with him over it. As exasperating as Peter Boyd so often is, there's a dependable toughness about him that she's always found incredibly reassuring in moments of real danger.

"The accommodation's a bit more limited I'm afraid," Spicer tells them, producing a key and unlocking the old-fashioned front door. Nodding his head towards the officers from the other car, he continues, "I'm sure they'll do their best to keep out of your way, but – "

"Yeah," Boyd interrupts, "we get the picture. Open the door, man, I'm freezing my balls off here."

"Sir."

It's concern for her, Grace is sure, rather than the claimed discomfort. Just Boyd's gruff way of doing things. He waves her ahead of him and she follows Spicer into the cottage. As the lights are switched on, she can see that it's a traditional two-up, two-down construction. Possibly Edwardian, maybe a little older. Might once have been a farm labourer's cottage. It's better furnished than the flat, and not as run-down, but there's still an air of chilly desertion that suggests it doesn't see much use. Spicer says, "I believe they had a bathroom put in upstairs a few years back."

"Shame," Boyd mutters behind her, "I was _so_ looking forward to going out to the privy at the end of the garden in the middle of the night."

Grace doesn't tell him that when she was a child, her family shared an outside toilet with their neighbours on both sides. Seems almost unbelievable now in the age of computers and mobile telephones.

"Kitchen," Spicer says, opening the only interior door. "Back door looks pretty secure."

The two other officers move past her, and she's certain she catches an easily-recognisable whiff of gun oil as they do. Might just be her imagination. The taller of the two goes into the kitchen, the other places a large black holdall on a dark wooden occasional table pushed well back into the far corner of the room. She doesn't need to ask what the bag contains. Looking round, she says, "I suppose we could just pretend that this is one of those quaint, over-priced weekend-break sort of places."

Boyd snorts. "I don't know about you, Grace, but when _I_ go away for the weekend, I expect my accommodation to come with stars attached. Five of them, preferably."

"You're such a snob," she accuses, but she knows he's not, not really. He works exceptionally hard to earn the money that allows him to enjoy the better things in life, and although eternally amused by his foibles she's never begrudged him anything from his expensive designer suits to his luxury Swiss wristwatch.

"Your luggage," their uniformed driver announces, appearing with her suitcase and Boyd's bag. He doesn't offer to carry them upstairs, simply places them down and then retreats to the car at a brief nod from Spicer.

"I'll arrange for the next shift to bring in some supplies," Spicer tells them. "With luck you won't be here long enough to need very much."

"I'm sure you said something like that once before," Grace tells him, mentally counting the hours and adding, "about thirty-six hours ago."

He clears his throat. "Well… um…"

"I'm joking," she clarifies, suppressing the urge to sigh. "None of this is your fault, Sergeant. Thank you for everything you've done for us."

"He's just doing his bloody job, Grace," Boyd complains, but it's a half-hearted grumble at best. To the man who's now checking over the weapons from the bag on the occasional table, he says, "Name?"

"Lawson, sir."

"And your oppo?"

"Webber."

"Good. Right, then, Lawson, we're going upstairs to get some much-needed sleep. I don't want to hear a peep out of either of you unless we're in imminent danger, clear?"

"As crystal, sir."

"Pass that on to your relief when they arrive. Grace."

"Mm?"

Boyd nods towards the stairs that rise straight from the small living room. "Up you go. Looks like you get the pick of the rooms again."

"Lucky me," she says, sparing Spicer a tired wink as she moves to pick up her suitcase. Boyd beats her to it, and the look he gives her indicates that it's not the time to make strident protests about equality and female emancipation. Besides, as the old saying goes, why keep a dog and bark yourself? Let him carry everything if he really wants to.

-oOo-

The double bed is a definite upgrade. When she'd first crawled into it the sheets had been cold in a not-quite damp way that had suggested that although clean they'd been on the bed for a while. Still, the mattress had been soft and comfortable, and as the sun had started to rise properly in the winter sky Grace had curled up under the covers and fallen into a sound asleep. Now, several hours later, awake, washed, dressed and at least partially refreshed, she heads down the stairs into the small, latticed-windowed living room. There's a quiet murmur of voices from the kitchen, and she goes to investigate, fully expecting Boyd to be seated at the tiny kitchen table, drinking coffee and making his continued displeasure with the whole situation very clear.

She's wrong. The muted voices belong to the two protection officers who have replaced the duo that followed them from Manor Park, and of Boyd there is absolutely no sign. This pair, she can't help but notice, are not wearing uniform, and do not appear to be armed with the small but powerful submachine guns the previous officers had. One of the two is a slim, attractive blonde who doesn't appear to be a day over thirty, and the other is a tall man perhaps ten years older who's distinguished by a bristling dark crewcut and eyes that are so blue and so piercing that they make Grace look twice. She offers them a hesitant smile and a quiet, "Good morning."

"Ma'am," both officers say in unison, the one voice significantly deeper and gruffer than the other.

Wondering what the etiquette for such a situation is, she supplies, "I'm Grace. Grace Foley. From the CCU."

"PC Donaldson," the man says, producing and holding up his warrant card for her inspection before nodding at his younger colleague, "and PC Finch. Essex WPU."

Witness Protection Unit, her mind automatically supplies. Surprised, she says, "Not SO1?"

"No, ma'am," Donaldson confirms, but he offers no explanation for the change.

The female officer stands up, her attitude friendlier and much more open. She extends a hesitant hand and says, "Zoe Finch."

Why it should be even a slight surprise to her that one of their armed protectors is female, Grace isn't sure. Eyebrows raised as they shake hands, she asks, "Witness Protection?"

Zoe nods and admits, "I think we're a bit of a stop-gap, Doctor."

Well-aware that she didn't introduce herself by her professional title, Grace says, "'Doctor'?"

"Zoe's a bit of a fan," Donaldson replies without any hint of mockery. He shrugs, adds, "She's desperate to move to CID, first chance she gets. Fancies becoming a detective."

Straight-faced, Grace says, "I won't hold that against her. Some of them very nearly qualify as human beings."

"Maybe in the Met," Donaldson says darkly. Moving across the small kitchen, he adds "Coffee, ma'am?"

"Grace," she tells them both, "or 'Doctor' if you really insist on formality. Coffee would be lovely, thank you. Any sign of Boyd yet?"

"No, ma... Doctor," Zoe says. "We were told not to disturb either of you unless it was an emergency."

"And were the words 'bear with a sore head', or something very similar also used, perchance?"

"Erm…"

Chuckling as she sits down, Grace says, "It's all right, you don't have to answer that. I'm perfectly capable of using my imagination. Don't worry too much about Boyd – his bark is almost always worse than his bite. Perhaps you," she looks towards Donaldson, "should make an extra cup of coffee. Strong, only the tiniest suspicion of milk, and a couple of sugars. Do you have another name?"

"Mark," Donaldson supplies, looking faintly bemused as he locates another mug. "How do you…?"

"Lots of milk," she tells him, "and no sugar. Don't worry, I'll beard the lion in his den for you."

Less than ten minutes later, she is standing on the claustrophobic, windowless landing at the top of the stairs, knocking on the bedroom door next to hers. There's a soft creak that sounds as if it's someone turning over in bed and an incoherent mumble that she takes as proof that Boyd is at least partially awake. Knocking again, she inquires, "Are you decent?"

Another creak is followed by an irritable, "What sort of a bloody question is that?"

"A perfectly reasonable one, under the circumstances," Grace informs him. "It's gone eleven. I've brought you coffee."

"Are you expecting me to come and get it, or something?"

"Are you expecting me to wait on you hand and foot while you lounge around in bed all day?"

Predictably, his patience gives out long before hers does. "Oh, just come in, will you?"

Compared to hers, his room is tiny. There's a narrow single bed placed lengthways under the window, a small dark wood wardrobe set at right-angles to the end of it, a low three-legged stool on which his clothes are piled, and a cheap bedside table with a solitary drawer. Nothing else. The part-closed curtains are green and decorated with large, garish yellow sunflowers, and they clash fiercely with the old-fashioned striped wallpaper and the blue and red duvet cover beneath which a sleepy, grumpy-looking Detective Superintendent is sprawled. Only his head and shoulders are visible, and that's fine by Grace. Even for her, it's not much more than three steps from the door to the bedside table where she deposits his coffee mug next to his phone.

"There are two witness protection officers downstairs," she tells him, glancing across the bed to look out of the window. She can't see very much. A stretch of grey sky and the tops of some leafless trees. "I think we're becoming a bit of an administrative nightmare."

"Good," is the surly reply. Boyd's bare arms emerge, and he puts his hands behind his head, causing a noticeable bulge of bicep that she tries not to dwell on. "A day without being a pain in the arse to somebody in the higher echelons is a day wasted. Heard from Spicer?"

Grace shakes her head. "No. You?"

"No idea. I was blissfully asleep until someone started banging on the bloody door." He gives her a thoughtful, appraising look. "Are you just going to stand there, or…?"

The low stool is occupied and there's no chair in the room and no room for one. "Or. Definitely _or_."

"Oh, for… Here." Movement under the duvet suggests he is moving his legs out of the way for her. Not knowing what else to do, Grace perches on the end of the bed. Boyd studies her for a moment, then asks, "You all right?"

"Tired," she admits, "and not altogether sure we're being told the whole story, but, yes, I'm okay. You?"

"Pretty much the same. What are Tweedledum and Tweedledee up to, then?"

"Tweedledum is a thirtyish blonde called Zoe," she tells him, "so naturally you'll like her."

He ignores the gentle dig. "And Tweedledee?"

"Is most _definitely_ not your type." Grace frowns as she realises she is still being minutely studied. "What?"

"You look… different." He makes it sound almost like an accusation.

Nonplussed, she opts for a simple, "Oh."

"Sort of… I don't know… different."

"You said that," she points out, not sure if she should be flattered or offended. "Well, so do you."

"I do?"

"Yes." Grace nods, then lands the killer blow. "Scruffier. Most definitely."

One hand leaves the back of his head, rubs thoughtfully over the rough stubble that's beginning to compete with his usually neat goatee beard. "Yeah, well, I didn't bother bringing a razor."

"Clearly. When did you last have a shave?"

The other hand moves from the back of his head and he shrugs. "I don't know. What day is it?"

It takes her a moment to decide. "Friday, I think."

"Wednesday morning, then, before work."

"This time next week," Grace says, calculating the days, "it will be Boxing Day."

Boyd scowls. "Fuck, really?"

"Really. Ah, let me guess," she smirks at him, "someone hasn't even _started_ his Christmas shopping."

"Oh, shut up. There's no need to look so bloody smug. Just because you've done it all by the end of November…"

"October," she says, just to annoy him. In truth, she still has a few things to buy and a few Christmas cards to post. It strikes her how banal the thought is, and she looks away suddenly, struggling with the bizarre reality of their situation. Less than a week until Christmas, and they are hiding away under armed guard because somewhere out there –

"Grace?" His voice is unusually soft, and it's edged with concern.

"Sorry," she says, not looking at him. "I just had a bit of a moment, that's all."

"Difficult to process, isn't it?" Boyd says, sitting up. "Whenever I've been in a situation remotely like this before, I've been firmly on the other side. _I've_ been the one doing my best to keep people safe. Not sure how to deal with… well, any of this."

It's an admission Grace never expected to hear him make. Whether he intended it to or not, it helps. Managing a weak smile, she says, "It's just so… so…"

"It is," he agrees, "and it already feels like forever, doesn't it?"

Picking at a non-existent bit of fluff on her soft dark trousers, she says, "How much danger do you think we're _really_ in, Boyd?"

"How honest do you want me to be?"

She knows it's a risk, knows he will give her the absolute truth if she asks for it. Surely, though, knowing can't be as bad as _not_ knowing? Grace looks him straight in the eye. "Completely."

"All right." Boyd is silent for a second or two, and then he says, "The fact that all this is – as far as we're aware – payment of a prison debt is… troubling. You know what that means as well as I do. Prisoners who don't pay off their debts to other prisoners end up getting killed, sooner or later. Proctor knows he's not safe, wherever he is, not until whatever he owes Hare is paid off in full, but offing coppers… that's serious business. No-one on the outside is going to take that on unless – "

" – they owe _Proctor_ a massive debt of their own."

Boyd nods. "Correct. And for a debt to be worth _that_ much… Well, you don't need me to spell it out for you."

She doesn't. Kill or be killed. "I don't."

He's watching her with sombre concern. "Do you need me to tell you that whoever it is who's out there, they'll have to get through _me_ to get to you?"

"No," Grace says. She knows how protective he is, how willing he is to risk his own life to defend someone else's. She's seen enough evidence of it in the past _not_ to know what he will do if it really comes to it. Not wanting to think about it, she asks, "What about Dennis Bailey?"

Boyd grunts, then says, "Dennis is a wild card. My fear is not that he'll come after us, but that he'll bust us wide open blundering about trying to find out who killed Jacky and why."

"'Jacky'," she says, picking up on the diminutive. "You knew him?"

Boyd's expression becomes neutral. "Oh, yes, I knew him."

She wonders what he's not saying. "Well? Are you going to share with the rest of the class?"

A short silence, then, "I said it before. Jacky is… _was_ … old school. Don't get me wrong, he was a thoroughly bad lad. Extortion, prostitution, protection rackets, all the old-fashioned tricks. But like a lot of the old villains he had his own code. Wouldn't have anything to do with drug dealing, wouldn't stand for kiddie-fiddlers, looked after the families of the people who worked for him." Another pause. "Don't look at me like that, Grace. I have… _had_ … no admiration for him. I'm just saying that he played by a certain set of rules. If you nicked him fair and square, he'd put his hands up. No lies, no bullshit."

"You arrested him?"

"Both of them," Boyd confirms with a nod. He draws his knees up under the duvet, rests his bare forearms on them. "More than once. Of the two, I know which one I'd prefer to see alive and kicking."

"Jack. Even if he is a – "

He doesn't let her finish. "If Marshall had done his job properly when he interviewed them, Grace, a lot of this could have been avoided, that's all I'm saying."

"Because Jack would have taken care of the problem."

He shrugs. "If you want to look at it that way."

"That's not moral ambiguity, Boyd, that's – "

"Real life," he cuts in. "I don't condone murder under _any_ circumstances, and you damn well know it, but if Jack had got to whoever killed Gail and Paul before Marshall did, well, I wouldn't have lost any sleep over it."

"And that," Grace says, too weary to be angry, "is _exactly_ why we're so different, you and I."

-oOo-

There's a small, wooden-fenced garden at the back of the cottage, and despite the biting cold it's wonderful to be outside enjoying the weak winter sun as it disappears and reappears behind the chasing clouds. Beyond the fence is a large open field, recently ploughed, and Grace is certain that's the only reason her brief escape from the cottage has been permitted. There's no way for anyone to approach the building from the rear without being seen. If she were to glance over her shoulder, she knows, she would see Donaldson watching her from the kitchen window, and if she were to move to the side of the building out of his line of sight, she has absolutely no doubt that he would follow her immediately. It's a fragile, limited sort of freedom, but it _is_ freedom. She's surprised by how much she's missed it in less than two days.

Moving to stand by the gnarled old apple tree close to the rear fence, she fishes her phone out of the depths of her coat pocket. It will need charging soon, she notices, and she can't remember whether she had the foresight to bring its charger. No point in asking Boyd – different phone – but perhaps Zoe or Mark might be able to help. With cold fingers that are already starting to grow numb, she scrolls through the address book until she finds the number she wants and then presses the little green call button. Holding the phone to her ear, she counts the number of rings. On the fourth there is an audible click and Eve's voice says, "Grace. Are you all right?"

"Fine," she says, cheered by the clear note of concern in the other woman's voice. "How are you? How's everyone else?"

The response is bright and immediate. "I'm okay, and so's Stella, but Spence is having a bit of a hard time. On top of all the normal day-to-day shit, DAC Lambert's been in, and there have been a lot of sudden hush-hush meetings and calls. He's beginning to look quite haunted."

Sympathetic but cold, Grace starts to wander the garden to warm herself up as she says, "Poor Spencer."

"Don't tell him I said so, but I think he's missing having someone to hold his hand," Eve says in a tone that's quite obviously intended to be conspiratorial. "Oh, and speaking of Boyd…"

"Yes?"

"It appears he's being somewhat selective in who he's responding to. Spence is using his office and he's been getting increasingly-irate calls and messages from a rather outspoken lady called – "

"Zahra?" Grace guesses.

"That's the one," Eve agrees, adding, "I haven't spoken to her personally, but I gather she's not at _all_ happy. According to Spence she has an excellent grasp of basic Anglo-Saxon. I really wouldn't want to be in Boyd's shoes when she catches up with him."

Resisting the urge to smirk, Grace continues to walk up and down. She's afraid that if she stops moving, she might turn into a solid block of ice. "Oh dear."

"You could try to sound a _little_ more sincere, you know," Eve tells her, not bothering to hide her amusement. "I take it he's all right?"

"Boyd? Perfectly." An uncharacteristic touch of spite makes her add, "He's made a new friend."

"He has?"

Still walking, Grace nods to herself. "Mm. Blonde and extremely pretty; probably born at about the same time he first joined CID."

"It's difficult to tell over the phone, Doctor," Eve drawls, "but do I detect the delicate sound of you flexing your claws, just a little bit?"

They've come to know each other very well since Eve first joined the CCU. They are notably different in age, but that hasn't prevented them from forming a friendship that continues to deepen and evolve. Gazing out over the ploughed field, Grace says, "That rather depends on how good your hearing is."

"Exceptional," Eve informs her. A pause. "Tell him she's young enough to be his daughter."

"That," Grace replies, trying not to sound bitter, "will only make him even more insufferably smug about the way she's fawning all over him."

"Tell him about the angry phone lady in front of her. That should do the trick."

Giving in to the urge to chuckle, Grace says, "You have an evil streak, Eve, did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Not recently," is the cheerful reply, "but thanks for the compliment. So, have you run out of clean clothes yet?"

With a grimace she replies, "Not quite, but if the offer you made yesterday is still open, and you don't mind making a quick trip to Finchley…?"

"Of course." There's a brief scrabbling sound. "Hang on, I'll make a list. What do you need? Is there a spare key somewhere?"

-oOo-

Returning to the comforting warmth of the cottage, she finds Boyd ensconced in the living room. Lounging in the most comfortable chair, his attention is all on Zoe, sitting on the very edge of the small horsehair sofa. Grace walks in just in time to hear, "…and then the bastard jumped into the bloody river."

It's a story she's heard many times. A long, hazardous pursuit that ended with a half-drowned suspect and a much younger Boyd being summarily hauled over the coals by his then notorious DI, the late, great John Hedley-Harper. Usually it gets recounted on those rare team-building social occasions when he's had more than a drink or two too many, and the more alcohol he's imbibed, the funnier the always long, rambling and intentionally solemn recitation is. Maliciously pleased to be able to interrupt, Grace says, "I've just spoken to Eve again."

He turns his head to regard her with exaggerated courtesy. "And…?"

"Everything's fine. She's going to collect some things for me and get Spencer to arrange to have them brought over. You should probably think about doing something similar. Oh," she gives him a knowing look, "and it seems your current lady-friend isn't terribly happy about you ignoring all her determined efforts to contact you. She's been haranguing Spencer."

On reflection, it is perhaps a vindictive thing to do, but it has the desired effect. Zoe clears her throat, gets to her feet and says, "Well, I'd better go and check in with Mark."

"You do that," Boyd says, still gazing at Grace. She stares back at him, eyebrows slightly raised. The sudden pointed silence lasts until Zoe has left the room and closed the kitchen door behind her. "My 'current lady-friend'?"

"Zahra."

He scowls at her. "I know who you bloody mean, Grace."

"Eve says she's not a happy woman," Grace says, settling in the other armchair. "Why are you ignoring her?"

The scowl intensifies. "Don't change the subject."

"I wasn't," is her mild, ingenuous reply. "We're still talking about Zahra, aren't we?"

"You know what I mean," Boyd growls. "'Lady-friend'? For God's sake, could you _be_ any less subtle?"

"'Subtle'? That's an interesting choice of word, Boyd. Unless, of course, you actually _were_ deliberately flirting with – "

"Seriously?" The retort is so quick and so hot that Grace knows she's hit a nerve. Good. Serves him damn well right. "She's young enough to be my bloody _daughter_ , Grace."

She wonders what he would think if he knew how precisely his words echoed Eve's. "Oh, so you did notice that?"

He's up and out of his chair faster than anyone who didn't know him would credit. Immediately starts to prowl in the confined space. "What _is_ your damn problem? Why all these snippy comments about other women all of a sudden? What the hell has any of it got to do with you?"

 _Displacement_ , Grace thinks. Classic displacement. The sudden surge of anger has nothing to do with her and anything she might have said, nor does it have anything to do with Zahra, Zoe, or any other woman that happens to be currently catching his attention. He's angry because he's confined and powerless, two states that don't sit well with his edgy, explosive character. Getting to her own feet, she says, "Now you're just being ridiculous, Boyd."

It's the wrong thing to say, and as he rounds on her she takes an automatic step back. It's unnecessary. Quick and fierce as his temper is, she's never had any fear that he might lash out physically at anyone he knows, much less at her. He's bristling, though, and the all tension in his stance transfers itself to the room around him. " _I'm_ being ridiculous? Well, what the hell do you call that little display? Are you _jealous_ , Grace? Is that it?"

That word. That dangerous, taboo word. The one she's consciously pushed away every single time it's crept forward in her mind for examination. The back of her neck flares into sudden heat, the reaction triggered not just by annoyance, but by an unwelcome sting of embarrassment, too. "Jealous?" she flings back at him. "Jealous of _what_ , exactly?"

He's too close. Far too close. "That's what I'd like to know. What _is_ it with you?"

Grace doesn't realise she's been edging backwards until she collides gently with the occasional table in the corner. With nowhere left to go, absolute defiance is her only remaining defence. "Me? It's not _me_ who's drowning in grief, who's obsessively using sex to try to keep the truth at bay, who's so emotionally dysfunctional that..."

Unexpectedly, as her harsh words die in her throat, Boyd freezes. He stares at her, an infinite well of pain clearly visible in his deep, dark eyes. When he speaks, his voice is unnaturally quiet. "Cheap shot, Grace."

"I'm sorry," she tells him, and she is. Endlessly, boundlessly sorry. For all of it. Repentant, she continues, "Boyd, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"No," he says, still very quiet, "you shouldn't. But you did."

He's so wounded, so… lost. Grace sees the full extent of it almost for the first time. Pure instinct makes her reach out a hesitant hand to him, and when he doesn't flinch back, she places it softly on his bristly cheek. Still staring at each other, they are locked into a strange tableau, as if for them, at least, time has momentarily stopped.

Boyd turns his head as if intending to kiss her palm, and behind him, right on cue, the kitchen door opens. Donaldson says, "Sir? I've got DCI Marshall on the phone. He's been trying to reach you."

-oOo-

 _Cont..._


	4. Blue Satin

**FOUR - Blue Satin**

Mid-afternoon brings two new officers to replace Mark Donaldson and Zoe Finch, and to Grace's surprise they bring with them a small grey suitcase that assuredly doesn't belong to her, but is filled with clothes, toiletries and other sundry items that most definitely do. A short, handwritten note from Eve is included, and as she sits on the edge of the double bed reading it, Grace can only marvel at her colleague's swiftness and efficiency. The clothes selected are from the more practical end of her wardrobe and include a thick lambswool sweater that she hasn't worn for several years, but is suddenly very grateful for, an old pair of jeans that she'd forgotten she even owned, a pair of sensible, flat-soled shoes, and a functional array of tee-shirts, blouses and underwear. It's less than she'd pack for a week's holiday, but a welcome addition to what little she hurriedly grabbed on that very first night.

Right at the bottom of the case, buried beneath an almost-new pair of cotton pyjamas, and a lightweight brown fleece jacket that she bought for a short autumn walking holiday six or seven years ago, she finds irrefutable evidence of Eve's questionable sense of humour. Dark blue satin edged with even darker blue lace. Fetching night attire for the mature lady; one who once intended to spend a hedonistic weekend in Amsterdam with a charming Scottish psychiatrist who only admitted at the very last minute to being extremely married with no less than four adult children. Staring in surprise at the unlikely inclusion, Grace isn't sure whether she should laugh or cry. Lifting it from the case, she allows herself the luxury of imagining all the suitably pithy things she could – _will_ – say to Eve when they are reunited.

If she'd thought about it, she would have realised that it was somehow inevitable that Boyd would choose exactly that moment to knock loudly on the bedroom door, open it without waiting for a reply, and march straight into her room with, "This is bloody stupid, Grace. We need to talk about… fucking _hell_ …"

There's not much else she can do to save face except hold up the blue satin and say, "Too much, do you think?"

He stares, blinks, and continues to stare. "Um… Maybe?"

It's worth the initial flush of embarrassment. Most definitely. "There, and I thought you'd be something of a connoisseur of ladies' nightwear, Boyd."

He looks very much like a man who's regretting embarking on such a bold course of action. Looks as if he's fervently wishing he could step back just a few minutes in time to reconsider simply walking into her room without waiting for a reply. "Well, er…"

"All these years," Grace says, letting the cool satin slide through her fingers as she places it back in the near-empty open suitcase, "and I never knew there was such an effective way to render you completely speechless."

"You… wear… that…?" It's clear that Boyd is struggling with the concept. She watches him with amused tolerance until he manages, "Christ, you're a dark horse, Grace."

"What did you expect?" she inquires, narrowing her eyes a fraction. "A floor-length flannelette nightie?"

A helpless, hapless shrug. "Well, you know… based on last night…"

"Ah." She nods. "I see. Now, what was it you came barging in here to say?"

"Eh?" Boyd seems to be having trouble dragging his gaze away from the delicate folds of satin. "I… um…"

"Yes?" It's far from noble of her, but she's thoroughly enjoying his discomfiture. "Come on, spit it out, there's a good boy."

He frowns, then looks more disconsolate than annoyed. "I've forgotten."

It's a barefaced lie, and they both know it. If it helps to avoid an argument, though… "Okay."

She expects him to retreat then, but he doesn't. He shoves his hands roughly into the pockets of his jeans and wanders to the window. Her room overlooks the fields, and he stands with his back to her gazing out at the view for several long, drawn-out seconds before saying, "If it makes you feel any better, you're right. I do my best to block it all out because I have no fucking idea how to even _start_ to come to terms with it."

"Why," Grace asks honestly, "would that make me feel better? Seeing you go through so much pain… it breaks my heart, Boyd, it really does."

"Don't." His voice is low. "Don't, Grace."

Instinct drives her to her feet, pushes her across the short distance between them. Stopping just behind him, she says, "Admitting you need help is not a sign of weakness, you know. Far from it."

She sees his shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath, sees them fall as he exhales. "Just leave it, eh? Even if I wanted to talk about it, this… is not the right time."

"Maybe not," she agrees, moving carefully to stand next to him without touching him. The light is beginning to fade from the sky again. Watching the cawing crows flapping around the bare trees along the edge of the ploughed field, she says, "I honestly believe some sort of grief counselling would help, though. I know people – good people – you could talk to."

"Grace." The warning is gentle, but it's firm.

She sighs. "All right, all right. Message received and understood."

"Good." Boyd turns a fraction, looks down at her. "Blue satin, eh?"

Once again, he's shut it all out of his mind, and perhaps it really is for the best. For now. Almost, but not quite coquettish, she inquires, "Prefer red?"

"God, no. Far too obvious." The faintest hint of a foxy grin starts to show. "So, if I was to come knocking on your door again tonight…?"

"You'd find me safely tucked up in bed wearing my chastity belt and flannelette nightie," she tells him primly. "And, by the way, you didn't knock. I just woke up and there you were beside my bed, glaring at me."

"You were snoring so bloody loudly you wouldn't have heard me if I _had_ knocked, Grace."

She scowls up at him. "Oh, I was _not_."

The grin broadens, its wickedness ever-increasing. "How would you know?"

That grin… That wonderful, mischievous grin. It's never been good for Grace's equilibrium, and it isn't now. She's looking up, Boyd's looking down, and there's barely any space between them. Sixteen years. Sixteen long and often difficult years they've known each other, and every moment of every one of them is hanging right there in that tiny distance that separates them. God help her, she's going to kiss him. The realisation doesn't dawn until she's already stretching up, and by then it's far too late.

It's not much of a kiss, not really. A gentle brush of her lips against his, that's all. Doesn't last for more than a couple of seconds, and then she's settling back to her usual height and they're staring at each other almost as if they're seeing each other for the very first time. Her heart is thudding heavily in her chest. Her palms are suddenly clammy. Boyd's grin has disappeared. He looks, in fact, rather solemn. Bemused, but solemn.

It was a mistake. A silly, spur-of-the-moment thing that should never have happened. Running away from it is not an option. There's nowhere to go and anyway, running away isn't the way she deals with anything. There's only one realistic way to save the situation, and Grace takes it. She opens her mouth to apologise, but Boyd steals the words away from her in a fierce kiss that far surpasses hers in length and sheer wanton recklessness. His hands are on her waist, and suddenly there's no space at all between them.

A door bangs downstairs and they jolt away from each other, the dangerous spell broken.

"Fuck," he says, gruff with embarrassment. "Jesus, Grace, I'm sorry. I didn't… Sorry."

"Boyd…"

He's already heading for the door. "Sorry, Grace. Sorry."

-oOo-

Dinner is an awkward, uncomfortable affair. Four of them sitting around the tiny kitchen table, eating a scrappy, unappetising meal and conversing in stilted sentences that mostly go nowhere. The two WPU officers, Sarwar and Heath, don't have very much to say for themselves, and Grace wonders if they are just too aware of Boyd's senior rank to relax in his company. Detective Superintendents, in fact Superintendents in general, are not exactly a rare species, but with perhaps less than twenty in the entire Essex force, she guesses they're not used to spending an extended amount of time with one. Maybe they've been instructed by their own senior officers to be guarded about what they say to, or in front of, the high-ranking interloper, given the usual rivalry between forces. Either way, their presence at the table doesn't provide much in the way of insulation between her and Boyd.

" _Vic_ Taylor?" Boyd says, in response to a reluctant comment from Sarwar, the older of the two other men. "Short, bald guy, used to be a permanent feature at the Romford dog track?"

Sarwar nods. "Sir."

"Nicked him myself, once. Must've been in about… 'eighty-six? Something like that. We were…"

Grace returns to her own thoughts, barely listening to the story as it unfolds. Usually, the telling of a new anecdote, one she's never heard, captures her full attention. For a man who's so taciturn when it comes to speaking about his private life, Boyd has always been remarkably loquacious about his professional one. Then, after thirty odd years' service, he's amassed a vast array of interesting, amusing, and often just plain outrageous stories, and, she has to admit, he's good at telling them. Even Sarwar and Heath seem to be more engaged as he ploughs on.

 _What,_ she asks herself, becoming ever-more introspective, _the hell really happened this afternoon?_

It's not an easy question to answer. The simplest explanation is just… proximity. They've been dumped together in an unusual, stressful situation, well-away from all the usual boundaries and routines that exist between them. Separate bedrooms instead of entirely separate houses with a big river and half a damn city between them. No space to get away from each other, not really. But…

Things like… _that_ … don't just happen. Do they?

Looking at him as he talks, Grace assesses what she sees. A bearded, undeniably handsome grey-haired man in his late fifties. Articulate, intelligent. Charming when he wants to be. Dark sense of humour, unstable temper. Driven by his own relentless demons. Attractive and charismatic, yes, but flawed. Often insensitive, obnoxious, and hard-headed. Does things his own way and has little tolerance for being challenged. Expects everyone around him to be every bit as meticulous and committed as he himself is but has to be in complete control. Failed marriage, wayward – now deceased – son. It's a very mixed picture, she concludes.

"Grace…?"

Dragging her attention back to the here-and-now, she meets his gaze, says, "Hm?"

Boyd heaves an exaggerated sigh. "Pay some bloody attention, will you? Donovan Drummond."

"Oh." She shrugs, reels off the details without needing to think about them. "Serial rapist. Intense hatred of women rooted in severe childhood trauma. High-functioning sociopath with a related personality disorder. Worked in a bank and used his position there to obtain the personal details of the women he chose to stalk. Eighteen known victims over a period of four years."

"See?" Boyd says with evident pride to the other two men. "Encyclopaedic knowledge of the crimes and psychopathology of most of the country's most notable imprisoned offenders. Very useful."

If she didn't know better, she'd almost think he was bragging. About _her_. What on earth…?

"Of course, offender profiling does have its critics," he continues, "and some have gone as far as to call it a pseudoscience, but as an experienced detective, what I think is…"

Astonished, she listens to Boyd hold forth on the merits of the discipline she has so often heard him deride. It's far from empty flattery, too. He is passionate and persuasive, seizing the attention of his reluctant audience and doggedly holding onto it as he explains subtleties and concepts she believed him barely aware of. Watching him, Grace begins to understand why, year after year, the CCU's funding is renewed in an increasingly difficult financial climate. More, she begins to understand why her own contract has been extended, time after time. It seems her most credible, influential, and tenacious supporter is far closer to home than she ever realised.

David Collier. Her mind flies back decades in time. A scruffy, argumentative little boy who tormented her relentlessly in the school playground, often reducing her to tears. Escaping him by passing her eleven plus and obtaining a scholarship to the local girls' grammar school had been a huge relief, even if it had been a considerable strain on her family's limited resources. Five years later, she'd met him again at a local dance and had barely recognised him. The grubby schoolboy who'd teased and persecuted her had become a tall, good-looking, lanky youth with a shy, captivating smile. He'd walked her home, and they'd shared a clumsy kiss on the corner of Tennyson Street.

Little boys torment little girls because they like them, her much-wiser older sister had told her, later that same night.

Because they like them.

 _Because he likes you, Grace. That's why he fights with you, why he's_ always _fought with you, and don't pretend you haven't somehow known it all along._

-oOo-

The dark sky turns impenetrably black save for a few distant, twinkling stars. Frost starts to form; not metaphorical but literal, sparking on every exterior surface. DS Spicer telephones with no useful news. The night shift arrives and Sarwar and Heath leave. The strange routine of their internment continues undisturbed by anything of any significance. The incoming officers take up residence in the kitchen and settle into what Grace suspects will be the first of many games of cards. Boyd is as elusive as the restricted space will allow, eventually settling but choosing to leave the kitchen door open as she listens to the radio and he pretends to read. He gives her no opportunity to talk privately to him, and as her frustration with him increases so does her keen desire to be out of his company. She goes upstairs to bed at just after midnight, silently damning him to whichever circle of hell will actually have him.

She hears footsteps on the stairs less than ten minutes later. Hears the creak of a loose floorboard out on the landing, the sound of the bathroom door being closed. Elderly pipes above her in the loft start to roar and rattle as they struggle to provide enough water for the shower. Normal, everyday noises. Lying on her side with the bedside lamp still illuminated, Grace stares at Eve's grey suitcase, standing accusingly by the wardrobe. Dark blue satin. The priceless look of bemusement on Boyd's face. The warm pliability of his lips, the not altogether unpleasant rasp of stubble against her cheek…

Don't think about it. _Far_ too dangerous. Whatever's happening between them, it's purely circumstantial. Doesn't fit into the strict pattern of their normal lives. How could it?

The pipes cease their mournful cacophony. Minutes later Grace hears the bathroom door open again. There are footsteps, another door closing, and then quiet sounds of movement in the tiny room next to hers that cease almost immediately. Still gazing at the suitcase, she wonders what Boyd is thinking about. Wonders if he's as unsettled and perplexed as she is. Maybe he's forgotten about it already. Swept it tidily away into whatever dark corner of his mind he reserves for all the things he doesn't deem important. The thought is a bitter one, not easy to accept, but part of her believes it's the truth.

Switching off the light, Grace unconsciously curls herself into a tight defensive huddle beneath the thick quilt. The room is forbiddingly dark, so dark that she can barely make out the lighter rectangle of the curtained window. No light pollution, no blazing city streetlamps. Hardly any noise, just the subdued whisper of the cold winter wind outside, and the occasional noises of the building settling for the night.

She's too old for all the ridiculous things that keep prickling at the edges of her mind. Far too old. It's been years – a _lot_ of years – since the last romantic relationship she could honestly call half-successful, and that… ended badly. Ended in the bruising divorce that robbed her of so much, including the two lively stepchildren she couldn't have loved more. And where, she wonders, are Stephen and his children now? Halfway across the world still? Maybe she should try again to get in touch with them… but with what objective? Stephen wouldn't thank her for making the effort, she knows, even if Will and Emma could be persuaded to forgive and forget. And really, what did she do that was so very wrong? It wasn't as if she was unfaithful or unreliable, even if the hours she worked were long and often unpredictable. Yes, she might have missed a few birthday parties, might have failed to attend a few important school events, but…

Annoyed with the direction of her thoughts, Grace squirms over onto her back. The bed is large, and its emptiness seems to mock her.

Peter-bloody-Boyd. It's all his damn fault she's so introspective tonight.

Nineteen ninety-two. The Richard Hare case. Detective Inspector Peter- _bloody_ -Boyd. What was he then, she thinks, just a shade over forty? Still married and living with his wife and son, but far from blissfully happy. An energetic, volatile man with a sterling reputation for being able to bring even the most difficult, complex cases to a satisfactory conclusion. Far from universally liked but grudgingly admired by many. Quick to criticise, slow to praise, but absolutely loyal to those who deserved it. They'd had a blazing row halfway through her very first day consulting on the case, his fault not hers, and if it hadn't been for immediate desperate pleas from higher up the chain of command, Grace would have walked away from the investigation then and there without looking back.

He'd called her difficult. Said she was impossible to work with. Eight years later he took her to dinner and asked her to join the embryonic specialist unit he'd just been given command of. Cold cases. Hundreds of them. She'd accepted the unexpected offer the same night.

Blue satin. Bloody Eve Lockhart, too. There will be words. Oh yes.

Minute after long drawn-out minute crawls past, and there's still no sound from the next room. No restless pacing, no surreptitious footsteps out on the landing.

He's not coming.

Of course he's not _fucking_ coming, Grace tells herself angrily. Why on earth would he, and why on earth would she want him to?

-oOo-

"Mm…?" is Boyd's muffled, sleepy response to her light knock on his door. A pause, then, "What?"

"It's me," she informs him, her voice low. "We need to talk."

Grace is not sure if he groans or not, but there's certainly a note of irritable complaint in his voice as he responds, "At this bloody hour of the morning?"

"Yes," she insists, mind made up, "at this bloody hour of the morning. Am I coming in, or are you coming out?"

An indecipherable mutter is followed by a tetchy, "I guess I'm coming out. Wait."

A thud followed by strange scuffling noises beyond the door make her frown. "What _are_ you doing in there?"

The response is terse. "Putting my damned shorts on. That all right with you, is it?"

Oh. "Perfectly all right."

The door opens perhaps six inches and a disgruntled-looking Boyd looks out, blinking against the harsh light. "Well?"

"Not here," Grace tells him in not much above a whisper, "I don't want to be interrupted."

He gives her a derisive look. "By whom?"

She glowers back at him. "Boyd, there are two men downstairs who are going to spend half the night drinking tea. You don't think one or other of them might need to use the bathroom at some point?"

He grunts and finally steps aside. "Fine. Come in, then, if you really must."

"There's more space in my room," Grace points out.

Boyd does not move. "Take it or leave it."

Childishly stubborn, she thinks. Just for the sake of it, too, she's sure. Switching off the landing light, she steps through the doorway into the tiny, dimly-lit room beyond. There are still clothes piled on the three-legged stool, not so tidily arranged this time. As Boyd closes the door behind her, she reluctantly returns to her earlier place at the foot of the bed. Surprisingly it's only then that she really registers that he is, indeed, only wearing a plain pair of loose cotton boxer shorts. At eye-level, given her seated position, a distracting smattering of dark hairs emerges from beneath the elasticated waistband as a thin, sparse trail that heads upwards and stops short at his navel; above that... Realising that she has been noticed noticing, Grace fixes her gaze on his face, raises a deliberately arch eyebrow and says, "Somehow I always thought you'd be more of a trunks man."

Hands on hips, he regards her with baleful disdain. "I'm sorry to disappoint you. Well?"

"We need to talk."

"So you said."

"About… what happened this afternoon."

Boyd's bearded chin lifts a fraction, but otherwise he remains motionless. "No, we don't."

"I think we do," she contradicts, refusing to give in so soon to exasperation. "Boyd, we have to _work_ together. Don't you think that's going to be a touch uncomfortable with… what happened… hanging over us?"

He exhales loudly, impatiently. "It was just a bloody kiss, Grace. A heat of the moment mistake. Christ, I think we're both old enough to be able to deal with that sort of thing without going to pieces over it, don't you?"

"Look, do you think you could possibly sit down?" she asks, unconsciously fiddling with one free end of her dressing gown's belt. "Standing there scowling isn't going to make the situation any easier – for either of us."

For a moment Boyd looks obstinate, but then he joins her on the bed, positioning himself as far away from her as he can, arms folded across his broad chest. Wondering if it will help, Grace looks away, stares fixedly at the heap of discarded clothes on the stool. She's about to speak again when he growls, "I'm the last man alive you'd voluntarily look twice at, Grace; yes, I know. You really don't have to drive it home with a sledgehammer. I said I was bloody sorry, all right? I really don't know what else you expect me to do."

The belligerent words linger in her mind for a moment, making no sense whatsoever. The sharp, taut laugh that forces its way from her throat is involuntary. Shaking her head, she mutters, "Clueless. Absolutely clueless."

"What?" It's a grumpy inquiry, not a challenge.

"Nothing," she says, sitting up a little straighter and turning her head to look at him. "That's what you think, is it, Boyd? That's what you really think?"

He scowls in confusion. " _What_ is what I think? Fuck's sake, Grace, we don't speak the same language at the best of times… and this is _not_ the best of times, trust me."

"I give up," she says, and in that moment, she wholeheartedly means it. Getting to her feet, she adds, "That's it, I give up. I really do."

" _Now_ what have I done?" Boyd demands.

Utterly clueless. Starting into motion, Grace snaps, "Oh, work it out. Even _you_ can manage to do that eventually, surely?"

She doesn't get very far. A strong hand seizes her wrist in a solid grip that proves to be far more difficult to escape than she expects, stopping her dead. Glaring down at him has no effect. The powerful grip does not release. "You wanted to talk, so _talk_."

"Let go," she warns him. "I mean it, Boyd. Let _go_."

"No." He stands up without loosening his hold on her wrist at all, and rarely has she felt so diminutive in comparison. He stares down at her, brows drawn together in a perplexed frown. " _What_ am I clueless about?"

The last threads of her patience snap and she all-but barks at him, "You. Me. _Us_."

Boyd shakes his head. "I'm not clueless."

"Yes, you are," she accuses, making a renewed effort to free herself. It doesn't work. "Completely bloody clueless."

"No, I'm _not_ ," he insists. His intense gaze bores into her. "All right, let's abandon all the pretence for once, shall we? You really think I don't _know_ why we fight like cat and dog? Why every time a new woman comes onto the scene you spend days snapping and snarling at me? Why sometimes just being in the same room together is almost bloody impossible? You think I don't _know_ the reasons for all of that, Grace?"

From him, it's practically a soliloquy. Again, she tugs against his punishing grip. "You're hurting me."

Boyd lets go immediately, but instead of apologising, he continues, "You're one of the best damn profilers in the country, if not _the_ best. The CCU is lucky to have you, and it certainly can't afford to lose you just because I… because we…"

"What?" Grace snaps, too infuriated to care what his answer might be. She's going to make him say it if it takes all bloody night. "Because we _what_ , Boyd?"

Too late, she sees a dangerous spark of reckless impulsivity flash his eyes. She's already stepping back as he bears down on her, but in the ridiculously small room there's no escape. Her back collides with the closed door and Boyd pounces. She couldn't stop him if she wanted to, a distant part of her realises, but that's okay, that's fine – stopping him is the very last thing on her mind as he closes in, trapping her with every ounce of strength and muscle he possesses. Caught in a rough, aggressive kiss that feels like an open declaration of war, she twists her fingers into his hair, grabs what she can, and matches him, pouring all her frustration and anger into the bruising battle for… whatever it is they're trying to rip from each other. Truth, acknowledgment, acceptance. So many frustrating, impossible, half-revealed things.

Eventually Boyd pulls his head back, but he keeps her pinned against the door. In the subdued lighting his eyes look as if they're aflame, as if some wild, unnatural fire is burning in their dark depths. His voice is hoarse as he says, "Now tell me I don't have a bloody clue."

Fear. Excitement. Anger. They're all surging through her. "Boyd…"

"Fucking," he says, and Grace knows the bald choice of word is quite, quite deliberate, "is easy. Anyone can do it. Making things work afterwards, that's the difficult part."

Startled by his insight, and the sheer accuracy of it, she swallows hard before whispering back, "Isn't it worth the risk?"

"High stakes, Grace," he tells her. "Very high stakes. It's not just me and you that's at risk, it's the whole damn unit. Every single one of our friends and colleagues, everything we've achieved as a team, and could _still_ achieve. That's a hell of a price to pay if – "

"'If'," she interrupts, letting her hands slide down to his bare shoulders. The dense muscle she can feel there is taut with tension. " _If_ , Boyd. You haven't spent a single day of your life living in fear of 'if', and neither have I."

"You're wrong," he says, but offers no further explanation. "Grace…"

"Listen to me," she tells him, tightening her hold on his shoulders and all-but shaking him. "This whole ridiculous, _fucked-up_ situation… it's not real. Don't you understand that? We're a million miles away from everything. Lost in some… some artificial bubble. When it ends – and it _will_ end – none of it will matter. _None_ of it. The world will go back to exactly the way it was, and everything that's happened since Wednesday night will just… vanish. Time will erase every moment of it. If we want it to."

"No." Boyd shakes his head. "Maybe for you, but not for me. I live every day with everything I've ever said and done. Every bad choice I've ever made, every unwise decision I've ever taken. Every single stupid fuck-up. Every moment of it is right here in my head. _Forever_."

There's no fight left in her. None. Grace lets her hands fall away from his shoulders. "Then you'll never be happy, Boyd."

He takes a half-step backwards, reinstating the traditional space between them. "Is that your professional opinion, Doc – "

"Don't you dare," she snaps at him in a final brief stab of weary temper. "Oh, don't you bloody _dare_."

Boyd's shoulders drop, as if he, too, has simply and suddenly run out of fight. They stare at each other in exhausted, hollow silence, not a single word left between them. Pushing away from the door, Grace turns, reaching out for the worn brass doorknob. There are no clear thoughts in her head, and all she feels is… empty.

"Oh, Christ," Boyd mutters behind her. "Grace. _Grace_."

Something about the raw note of hurt in his voice makes her look round at him. He looks as tired and beaten as she feels, and maybe that's the reason she at least tries to give him a weak, reassuring smile. It doesn't work very well, but perhaps it's enough because he holds out a tentative hand to her and says, "Come and lie down."

She's too tired to be surprised. "Why?"

"I don't know. Just… come and lie down."

Nothing seems to be making any sense anymore. Pragmatism, dredged from some unknown place, makes her say, "But the bed… it's tiny."

"We'll manage."

Almost trancelike, she takes his hand. The room is so small she's forced to release it almost immediately to sit back down on the edge of the bed. Somehow both clumsy and graceful, Boyd manoeuvres round her, past her, stretches himself out under the window and eases her down against him. There's far too little space, but Grace is long past caring about such trivialities. Shoulders tight against his chest, back against his stomach, she lies rigid and confused, not knowing what to do or say. Behind her, he murmurs, "Relax."

She can't help snorting, under the circumstances. "Hilarious."

His voice remains soft, though it's insistent as he says, "You're safe, Grace. Nothing's going to hurt you."

She closes her eyes for a moment. "Including you?"

The answer is delayed, but when it comes, it's steady. "If I said I'd never hurt a woman in my life, I'd be lying, but it's never been deliberate. Not once."

It's not the best time to ask, but she needs to know. "And Zahra? Where does she fit into tonight?"

This time there's no hesitation. "She doesn't. It was just a couple of casual dates, Grace. Nothing more."

Knowing it's none of her business, but possessed with the keen desire to know, she asks, "Did you sleep with her?"

"No." The reply is so quick and so definite that she knows it's the truth. She feels him shrug. "Intended to. _Would_ _have done_ if it hadn't been for DAC-bloody-Lambert."

Cautious in the limited space, Grace manages to wriggle over onto her back. Her companion is watching her in a quiet, contemplative manner that's just short of unnerving. Finding his hand, she laces her fingers through his. "If it's just tonight – "

"Grace."

"No," she says, "let me finish. If it's just tonight, Boyd, that's all right. It really is. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Boyd shakes his head. "Not remotely, but I'm used to that."

Silence falls between them again, unconfrontational this time. The frustration and fury's gone from them both. The first gentle kisses and hesitant caresses only confirm it.

-oOo-

 _Cont..._


	5. Inferno

**FIVE - Inferno**

For the rest of the night Grace sleeps and wakes and sleeps again enveloped by the fierce heat of his body. The bed is far too narrow for two, but despite the discomfort, Boyd barely stirs. Every time she wakes, she envies him but makes no attempt to disturb him. Asleep, he looks intensely vulnerable, and the sight stirs every maternal feeling she possesses. Not very appropriate, perhaps, given what took place before they fell asleep plastered together only half covered by the rumpled duvet, but Grace has never been a great Freudian, so she reads nothing deviant or unwholesome into the reaction. Vulnerable, and peaceful. Serene, even. The permanent furrows across his brow smoothed out, the lines caused by the too-frequent scowl almost completely erased.

She watches him for a while as the grey dawn gets lighter and lighter, awed by just how deeply he can sleep when there are so many things to worry about. She doesn't consciously think it, but perhaps what she's doing is committing everything about the way he looks in repose to memory. A mental snapshot she can summon and examine whenever she wishes, even if she never sees him like this again.

Neither of them said… those words. She's glad. Better silence than lies.

There are scars on his flank. Hidden now. She knows where they are, how they look, how they feel. Remembers the day he got the injuries that caused them, remembers her terror as she watched the fatal drama that unfolded in that eerily-lit basement. Not fatal for Boyd, though it easily could have been. Fatal for the man who stabbed him, not just once, but twice. Shot and killed by a police firearms team as Boyd came close to bleeding out on the floor below.

He always bounces back. Somehow, he _always_ bounces back. He will from this, too, Grace knows, if it proves to be over even before it's really begun.

She hears a car arrive and another leave. Another change of shift, another day of confinement. The third morning she has woken in a strange bed wondering if today will be the day that the nightmare ends, whether today will be the day that brings the good news that the killer they're hiding from has been arrested and is in custody.

It must be Saturday. The twentieth. Nearly Christmas.

Sandwiched between her and the strip of wall below the window, Boyd sleeps on, his breathing slow and regular.

-oOo-

Donaldson and Finch. Sounds a little like one of those Saturday evening television comedy acts that used to be so popular. They're sitting drinking tea when Grace arrives in the kitchen. Brief greetings are exchanged as she moves to the kettle. There's not enough hot water left in it to make one drink, let alone two. As she refills it from the leaky mixer tap over the sink, Donaldson clears his throat and says, "There was an attempted break-in at the Superintendent's house last night. The burglar alarm went off just after three."

Grace turns to frown at him. "I thought both houses were being watched?"

"They were," Zoe Finch assures her, "but it was a busy night, apparently. Not enough cars to cover the number of urgent calls coming in; you know how it is."

"I do," she agrees. "No-one called us."

"I think DS Spicer tried to." There's a note of apology in Zoe's voice. "Both your phones are going straight to voicemail. He called Rogers and North, updated them, but told them there was no point in disturbing either of you. They briefed us when we got here."

Of course. Her phone was almost flat yesterday. It probably expired completely at some point during the night. While she was… otherwise engaged. "Oh. You said 'attempted break-in', Mark?"

Donaldson nods. "The neighbours have been understandably twitchy, seeing a visible police presence coming and going over the last few days. When the alarm went off, I think all the lights in the street went on. There was a report of a man spotted running out of the end of the street, apparently. The officers who attended checked all the doors and windows. Place was still locked up like a fortress."

"Good." Relieved, Grace returns to making coffee. Opening the fridge, she frowns again, irritable this time. "No milk?"

"Night shift had the last of it," he tells her, clearly as displeased by the fact as she is.

"Well, I can't wait until your relief gets here," she grumbles. "Black coffee is one thing, but black tea is an abomination, Besides, we're out of bread, so breakfast was going to be cereal."

"There's a shop in the village," Zoe informs her. "One of those little general stores. Saturday morning, it's bound to be open."

Temptation starts to battle with common-sense. The village is fairly close, after all… "I suppose it's not far. I mean, if you took the car, you could be there and back in less than twenty-five minutes…"

Donaldson clears his throat. It's a loud, disapproving noise. "That may be so, Doctor, but our orders…"

"Came from DCI Marshall via one of your own Inspectors?" Grace suggests.

"Well, yes," he agrees, a hint of dark suspicion evident in the way he looks at her.

She points towards the ceiling. "Upstairs, there is an extremely quick-tempered DSI who outranks both of them. One who has been known to reduce hardened detectives to quivering wrecks for far less than supplying him with a sub-standard cup of tea."

"It's ten minutes' drive to the village," Zoe urges her colleague, "and one of us will still be here…"

"No-one will ever know," Grace adds, "including Boyd, if you're quick enough."

"No," Donaldson retorts, still stoical.

To Zoe, she says, "I _may_ have said that his bark is usually worse than his bite, but I may also have neglected to mention just how loud that bark can be. Additionally, I might have forgotten to mention just how little respect he has for rules, and how much he prizes initiative."

Zoe looks at her fellow PC again. "Mark, he's a Super, for God's sake. Do you _really_ want to piss him off?"

-oOo-

"You could transfer to the Met," Grace says. She's sitting with Zoe at the little kitchen table, waiting for Donaldson to return. Of Boyd there is still no sign, but his long shadow hangs over the conversation. "But the CCU is not generally a popular choice for those wishing to advance their careers. I think it takes a certain sort of person to do what we do."

"Cold cases fascinate me," is the immediate reply. "Going back into the past, trying to find what other people missed."

"It's not as glamourous as it sounds," Grace warns with a slight grimace. "I'm afraid we spend a _lot_ of time just digging through the archives, and even when there _is_ new evidence, we often end up concluding that there's simply not a high enough chance of getting a result to warrant the sheer cost of re-opening an investigation that might have been closed for decades."

Zoe shrugs. "Even so…"

"If you're serious," Grace tells her, not sure that the younger woman really is, "talk to Boyd. Not all the officers we have are fully-qualified detectives. It's not an essential pre-requisite. You'd have to leave Essex and join the Met first, of course, and you'd have to take care of that yourself."

"But you think there's a chance he might take me? If there was a vacancy, I mean."

"Well, you've got a decent amount of experience, and you do have some very specific skills that he may very well feel could be useful to us." Pausing, she adds, "But I'm really not in a position to say, I'm afraid. Boyd… is something of a law unto himself. In _everything_. I've seen him take on people I never thought would get through the door, and let people go that I honestly thought would last the distance."

"I see." Zoe sounds discouraged.

"He doesn't have to like you," Grace continues, "but he _does_ need to see something in you that makes you a good fit for the CCU. It's a small, unique multi-disciplinary unit, one that manages to do extraordinary things with very little in the way of resources, and there's no room for people who don't believe one hundred and ten percent in the value of what we do."

Beyond Zoe's shoulder, beyond the kitchen window, a dozen black crows suddenly rise into the air from the ploughed field beyond the fence. Their startled, angry cawing is loud enough to draw the attention of both women, but it is Zoe who snaps to her feet, her right hand going straight to the Glock pistol holstered at her waist. Her voice is tight as she says, "Alarm call."

Grace has lived in towns and cities her whole life. Most of her experience of birds is limited to the harmless fluttering of sparrows and the gentle cooing of pigeons. "What?"

"Alarm call," Zoe repeats, moving to the window. "Something frightened them."

A cold tingle of unwelcome fear runs down Grace's spine. Automatic response, she tells herself. Doesn't mean something bad is about to happen. Taking a guess, she asks, "Could it have been a fox, or something?"

Zoe shakes her head. "A fox wouldn't be out in the open at this time of day, and even if it was, it wouldn't cause that kind of reaction."

The countryside is largely a mystery to Grace. Pretty to look at, and fun to enjoy for a few hours now and again, but completely alien in so many ways. "I'll have to take your word for it. Can you see anything?"

Zoe has moved to the back door and is peering out through the grimy glass. "Nothing unusual or out of place."

"Maybe a car drove past, or something?"

Another firm headshake. "There's no road on that side of the farm, just an old bridleway that's too narrow to get a vehicle down. We use this place for just that reason… it's isolated, out of the way."

"It's probably nothing," Grace says, willing herself believe it. Her heart is pounding. "We're probably just jumpy because we're feeling guilty about sending Mark to the village."

"Mm."

Doing her best to slow her ever-quickening breathing, she says, "I think it's high time Boyd was awake, don't you?"

Zoe half-turns, her expression apprehensive. "But Mark isn't back yet."

"I know, and Boyd's not going to be happy when he finds out he's not here, but…"

A slow nod of acceptance. "All right. You go and wake him. I'll ring Mark."

Heading back up the stairs, Grace almost manages to convince herself that they are overreacting, that a few crows suddenly taking flight means nothing. Perhaps they simply spotted a farm worker, or someone walking a dog, or something. Not bothering to knock on Boyd's door, she barges in to find him lying on his back, hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling. Spuriously, she says, "Oh, you're awake."

He turns his head to regard her. "And conspicuously alone."

"You're not alone," she points out, "I'm here."

The response is sulky. " _Now_."

"We'll argue about it later," Grace tells him, "but right now, there are other things to worry about."

Boyd must hear something in her voice, because he sits bolt upright, the reproachful insouciance falling away in an instant. " _What_ other things?"

Knowing it will provoke a firestorm of temper, she admits, "Mark's somewhere between here and the village, and – "

The single gunshot is so loud it seems to almost shake the cottage walls. Half-deafened by it, Grace emits a surprised shriek, instantly choked-off, and flattens herself against the wall by the wardrobe. Pure instinct, no thought required. Boyd is out of bed and grabbing for his clothes before she's even aware of it. Hauling on his jeans, he barks, "On the floor, Grace! Get down on the bloody floor!"

She doesn't need to be told again, not with the sound of running footsteps on the stairs. A voice rises ahead of them, "Doctor Foley! Superintendent!"

Zoe.

Flinging open the door as he struggles into his tee-shirt, Boyd shouts, "Get up here now! What the _fuck_ is happening?"

Panting hard, Zoe comes into view, gun in hand. Her face is white and strained, and she does not look as composed as Grace thinks she should… and then she sees the blood soaking through the other woman's clothes. Horrified, she tries to stagger to her feet, but Boyd pushes her down. Physically pushes her, forcing her to curl into a tight, defensive ball at the foot of the wardrobe. He seizes Zoe by the shoulder and drags her into the room, slamming the door closed and putting his back against it as he demands, "How badly are you hurt, Finch?"

A gasping Zoe has subsided into a seated position on the floor. "Not sure, sir. I heard… a noise outside the back… door and went… to investigate. He jumped me from behind. Had a knife. I managed… to get a shot off as… he ran away, but…"

"Jesus-fucking-Christ," is the vehement response. "Why weren't you wearing a stab vest? And where the _fuck_ is Donaldson?"

"On his way… back from the village… sir," Zoe manages, ignoring the first question.

Boyd doesn't hesitate. "Give me your weapon, Constable."

"Sir…?"

"I'm an AFO," he roars at her, "now give me your fucking weapon!"

Zoe looks terrified, but whether by Boyd, her injury, or by the situation in general, Grace can't tell. She passes the gun over, her hand shaking as she does so. Boyd checks it with the same calm, clinical efficiency that Grace has seen from Spencer and Stella every time they have been authorised to draw weapons from the armoury. Satisfied, he looks straight at her. "Find something to use to put pressure on that wound, Grace. Don't mess about with it, just keep the pressure on, and don't leave this room."

The idea of being left alone to look after an injured Zoe, while he goes to face God knows what… "Boyd…"

"Not _now_. Just do it. Finch," he looks towards Zoe and orders, "get on your radio and call for immediate back-up. I don't care if they have to mobilise half the fucking force, just get me some back-up, and _now_. Grace, if you have to, take over. Guns, dogs, choppers… whatever they've got, I want it here immediately."

"Don't go out there," she pleads. "Boyd…"

"I'm not going far," he tells her. He takes a breath, as if forcing patience. "Remember what I told you? Whoever's out there, they'll have to get through _me_ to get to _you_."

"This is not the time for – "

"Petrol," Zoe interrupts. She's fumbling for her radio, but it's clear she's shaking far too much to use it. Her voice is thin and high. "I can smell _petrol_."

She's right. Just a trace in the still inside air at first but getting much stronger.

Grace looks at Boyd, cold fear closing vice-like around her heart, her lungs. An imaginary vision of Gail Hillier's last awful moments as the flames took hold of her home and possessions fills her mind with blank horror.

" _Shit_." Boyd is already in motion, throwing open the bedroom door and bounding out onto the landing. The immediate increase in the pungent stench of petrol is so strong that Grace nearly gags.

From below them, there is a rush of sound, forceful, but duller than might be expected. Not an explosion, not quite, but the suppressed roar of petrol vapor igniting in the kitchen below them.

-oOo-

Rising heat. Dense, choking smoke that seems to get thicker with every passing second. Stumbling half-blind down the stairs behind Boyd who is half dragging and half carrying Zoe Finch, Grace is horrified when she sees the extent of the flames, how strong they are, how far they have already spread. Through the swirling smoke she can see that the kitchen is ablaze, rendered completely impassable, and that the fire is starting to take hold in the small living room. It's the inimical thick smoke, though, that really frightens her. Dangerous and dark, it stings her throat, claws at her lungs. Coughing and retching, she grabs a rough fistful of Boyd's tee-shirt and hangs on tight, desperate not to get separated from him. Somehow the three of them make it to the bottom of the stairs, but it's clear that if they don't act fast to escape, they will soon be driven back up them by the ever-increasing inferno.

Boyd all-but throws Zoe into her arms, making her stagger. They reel against the wall at the foot of the stairs as he pulls away from them, heading for the cottage's front door. Grace knows he will find it is locked, and he does. He puts his shoulder to it, and when that doesn't work, he takes a few steps back and charges at it. The door holds firm, defying him, and he roars in angry frustration. Time seems to have slowed to a crawl, enabling Grace to formulate and discard half-a-dozen plans in the time it takes Boyd to whirl round, assess the speed at which the fire is progressing through the room, and whip back to face the window that looks out over the small, unkempt front garden. Coughing, she tries her best to keep Zoe upright, but it's a fierce battle that she's not sure she can win. Zoe is not heavy, but Grace is petite, and far from young. She considers herself reasonably healthy, but she lives a sedentary sort of life, one that doesn't generally require much physical exertion.

The living room window explodes outwards in a cacophony of sound, its glass shattering into thousands of glistening shards under the weight of the wooden chair Boyd hurls through it. The inrush of fresh air makes the smoke coil and writhe in thick plumes, and it fans the flames spreading out from the kitchen door. The small sofa catches light, oily black smoke pouring from it, adding to the acrid fumes already filling the room.

It is, a detached part of Grace's mind thinks, like a scene from hell.

"Grace!" A loud bellow that snaps her back into real-time. "Grace, come _on_ …"

Somehow Boyd has hold of them both, one hand under Grace's arm, guiding her forward, the other locked onto the back of Zoe's lightweight jacket, enabling him to haul her the short distance to the window.

It's not high, that window. Barely waist-height. Grace baulks at it anyway. "I can't, Boyd…"

"You can," he snaps at her, "and you _will_."

She doesn't have any choice in the matter. Releasing his hold on Zoe, Boyd grabs Grace around the waist and physically heaves her up high enough for her flailing feet to find the jagged edges of the window. A sharp pain in her lower calf tells her that a sliver of glass has found its mark, but there's no time to think about it as he more-or-less pushes her bodily through the newly-empty frame. It's only a short drop, but she lands hard, sprawling inelegantly in a herbaceous border that hasn't seen any attention for years. Cool, fresh air sears her lungs, but she gulps at it hungrily, barely aware of her stinging, streaming eyes, or the grinding pain in the elbow that hit the ground first.

She's staggering to her feet as Zoe is bundled unceremoniously out of the same window, landing almost as awkwardly amongst the dead, straggly plants that must once have been someone's pride and joy. Smoke is belching thickly from the window, and the fire producing it is roaring within as it devours fixtures, fittings and furniture. As Boyd himself appears in the window, hands grasping the frame as he brings a leg up, a car turns in from the road, scattering gravel as it skids to a rapid halt. Donaldson is out and running the short distance towards them in less time than it takes Grace to shout his name, and then Boyd is somehow there, too, seizing her arm and dragging her away from the cottage as Donaldson does the same for his colleague. As they stumble towards the high hedge, the wooden window frame starts to burn, and the first flames start to lick up the outside of the building.

"Call for back-up!" Boyd roars at Donaldson. "Officer down, shots fired. Do it!"

Zoe is lying on the ground, her face a pale, sweaty mask streaked with soot. Wild, frightened eyes seek Grace out, the sheer desperation showing in them heart-breaking to see. Crouching down, she mumbles, "It's okay… You're going to be all right… It's okay…"

" _Move_ , Grace." Boyd. Boyd on his knees next to the supine woman. Zoe's eyes close, flicker open, then close again.

No. _No_. This cannot be happening. _Cannot. Be Happening._

But it is.

As Boyd searches for a pulse, Donaldson bellows into his radio, the words meaningless to Grace, who simply stares at the still, waxy face before her.

Boyd goes to work, starting chest compressions. A flash of memory. She's seen him do this before. Seen him fight to save a life… and fail.

"Please," she mutters under her breath. "Oh God, _please_ …"

A second car turns in at speed from the lane, startling all of them. Donaldson is still on the radio, and even if there had been a car in the area, it's far too soon for –

Spicer. He leaps from the car, comes running towards them, a look of frozen shock on his face. "What the…?"

"He found us," Grace almost screams. She gestures at the burning cottage. "He _found_ us…"

Boyd is performing rescue breaths now, but there is still no movement from Zoe. He glances at Grace, and she's certain she sees the tiniest shake of his head as he goes back to giving chest compressions. Spicer stares. Just stands and stares, as if he cannot quite believe what he's seeing, then he extracts his phone from his pocket and starts to dial, moving away from them as he does so.

Donaldson drops to his knees next to Grace. "Ambulance is coming, sir, and there's an ARV on its way from Chelmsford."

"Give me some help here, man," Boyd growls at him. Like Grace, he is dirty and sweating. Unlike Grace, he is breathing hard and heavy from the sheer effort needed to provide effective CPR. The two men start to work as a team, silent and efficient, but there is no sign that what they are doing is of any use at all.

Somewhere in the far distance, Grace hears the first thin wail of a siren. Could belong to any of the emergency services, but it's the best sound she's heard for a long, long time.

Spicer moves to stand next to her. Staring down, he asks, "What happened?"

"She was stabbed," Grace croaks, her voice wrecked from smoke and emotion. Her eyes are still swimming with tears, but irritation from the fire is not the only reason.

"Jesus Christ…" Spicer's deep voice is quiet, almost sepulchral. He clears his throat. "DCI Marshall is on his way."

"We're losing her," Donaldson reports, tight and controlled. "Sir, we're losing her…"

"Keep going," Boyd barks at him. "We're not giving up on her yet."

They fight on, but it's useless. Somehow Grace knows it's useless. They might be forcing air into her lungs, might be forcing her blood to circulate, but Zoe Finch is beyond any help they can give her.

As the wailing siren draws closer, Spicer crouches down, searches for a radial pulse, shakes his head. "She's gone."

Donaldson rocks back on his heels, his features expressionless as he stares down at Zoe. When Boyd ceases chest compressions, neither of them resumes giving rescue breaths.

The first vehicle to arrive on the scene is not an ambulance, it is a marked police car that disgorges two uniformed officers, both who approach at a run.

It's too late. It's all far too late.

-oOo-

 _Cont…_


	6. Guilty

**SIX - Guilty**

"John Reid," the doctor says, introducing himself with a professional smile as he ushers her into the small, windowless room, "Forensic Medical Examiner. Well, you certainly look as if you've been in the wars."

"It's nothing," Grace mutters, though her painful arm has stiffened up to the point where she can barely move it. Her throat is sore, and there's a throbbing pain in her lower leg from the cut she received while being forced through the broken cottage window, but she's still not convinced she really needs medical attention. Still, she seats herself on the plastic chair indicated and prepares for the inevitable. "Will this take long?"

"Probably not," he reassures her, "but let me take a look at you first, eh?"

Someone has tried to make the room look at least a little festive, stringing silver tinsel around the curtain rail between the examination bed and the rest of the room. It's far from successful. Grace stares at the posters on the wall as Reid examines her. One suggests that domestic violence should never go unreported, another that hepatitis B and C must always be taken seriously. The FME is gentle but thorough, asking her quiet questions as he prods and pokes and makes noncommittal noises. Eventually he concludes, "I don't think there's any fracture, Doctor Foley, but you'll need to have your arm x-rayed just to make sure. That cut on your leg will require stitching. Have you had a tetanus jab recently?"

"Two or three years ago," she tells him, stifling a raspy cough.

"Smoke inhalation," he says. "The smoke has irritated your lungs and throat. The hospital will also do a chest x-ray and take some blood just to make sure there's no lasting damage."

"The hospital?" Grace echoes.

"I'm afraid so." He gives her another small smile. "For what it's worth, I don't think there's anything to worry about, but smoke inhalation can be tricky. Patients can sometimes deteriorate very quickly. If it makes you feel any better, I'll be telling the Detective Superintendent exactly the same thing when I finally get hold of him."

"I'm sure he'll be delighted," she mutters. They were separated almost on arrival at the small police station with its scruffy, old-fashioned exterior, and she quickly lost sight of him in the chaos.

"I'll deal with your leg," Reid says. "That should save you some time in A and E."

"Butterfly stitches?" she asks hopefully.

He shakes his head. "The real deal, I'm afraid. Don't worry, I'll use plenty of local anaesthetic. You won't feel a thing."

-oOo-

"Thirteen stitches," she grumbles to DS Spicer, as he leads her along a corridor painted a pale, sickly green. " _Why_ won't you tell me what's happening?"

"In here," he says, not answering her question as he knocks on a door and opens it. "Doctor Foley, sir."

A solemn-looking DCI Marshall is sitting behind a borrowed desk, and Boyd is sitting at ninety degrees to it. Both men start to rise as she enters the room, but as Spicer retreats she waves the courtesy away, looks from one to the other and demands, "What's happened?"

"The man who stabbed PC Finch has been found," Marshall informs her. "He's dead."

" _Dead_?" Grace stares at him, incredulous. "So Zoe _did_ manage to wound him, then?"

It is Boyd who shakes his head. "No. No sign of a gunshot wound. Post mortem will have to confirm it, of course, but it looks as if he died from massive blood loss. He was found in the woods, about half a mile from the cottage. Someone cut his throat."

" _What_?" Again, she looks from one man to the other. "Could it have been self-inflicted?"

"Eve's on her way," Boyd tells her, "but the initial opinion of the attending pathologist is almost certainly not. Added to which, the knife used to stab Finch has yet to be recovered."

Marshall's portentous voice is loud. "If you'll pardon the language, Doctor, this whole thing is turning into a complete bloody balls-up. We've got a dead chief suspect, Essex are screaming because they've lost an officer, and I've got the DAC on my back."

"Poor you," Grace mutters without a hint of sincerity. To Boyd, she says, "Dennis Bailey?"

"That's our current theory," Marshall answers before Boyd can say a word. "He's absent from his address in New Cross. I've got officers trawling all his usual haunts, but so far, no sign of him."

"I take it the man we think killed Zoe hasn't been identified yet?"

The big man shakes his head. "Not yet, but his DNA's been taken, and his prints are being run as we speak. I think it's safe to say it's only a matter of time. A man who's killed three people on someone else's say-so is unlikely _not_ to have a record."

"I have to agree," Grace says. She looks at Boyd, wondering why he is contributing so little to the conversation. He looks a mess, she thinks. Still dishevelled from sleep, and haggard, unshaven and dirty. There's blood and soot on his face, his hands and his tee-shirt, and his jeans are mud-spattered and torn. She doubts she looks much better.

Almost as if reading her mind, Boyd stirs in his chair. "Marshall, I'd like to speak to my associate. Alone."

The DCI glowers, but it seems he knows he has no choice but to capitulate because he gets reluctantly to his feet. "I'll need to speak to both of you again in a few minutes. I'll go and see if they've had any progress finding Bailey."

Waiting until he's out of the room, Grace looks at Boyd again. "What are you thinking?"

His response is slow, considered. "Primarily, I'm thinking… how did he – the man who stabbed Finch – find us, and how did he know that Donaldson was temporarily out of the picture?"

"Well, as far as the second question goes, he must have been watching the cottage."

"Mm."

"You don't think so?" Grace inquires, watching him closely.

Boyd shakes his head. "No, no, I _do_ think so. No other obvious explanation, is there? Except…"

"Except?" she prompts.

"I don't know," Boyd admits with a slight shrug. "Just a feeling I've got."

They've worked together for long enough for Grace to trust his instincts. Usually, when Boyd thinks something isn't quite right, it… isn't quite right. Rubbing at a stubborn smear of dirt on the back of her hand she says, "If it was Dennis who killed him…"

"…then it was probably also Dennis who found us and tipped him off. Yeah, I'd got that far on my own, Grace. Still doesn't quite add up, though, does it?"

"Doesn't it?"

He shrugs again. "Something about the whole thing feels… off. You okay?"

The lightning change of direction startles her. Refusing to think about anything than her physical condition, she says, "Oh. Yes. Few cuts and bruises, nothing serious."

"Sorry."

"Don't be," she says, "you saved my life."

His reply is a dismissive, "Hardly."

"You did," Grace insists. "If you hadn't shoved me through that window…"

Boyd winces. "I didn't exactly 'shove you through a window', Grace."

"Actually, that's exactly what you did – and I'm very grateful for it." She pauses, then dares to ask, "What about you? Are _you_ okay?"

He holds up his left hand, palm outwards, and for the first time she sees the long, bloody laceration there. Crusted and oozing, it looks deep. Expressionless, he says, "'Few cuts and bruises, nothing serious'."

Another victim of the shattered glass, Grace thinks. Choosing her words with care, she says, "I was actually talking about… Zoe."

His expression doesn't change, remains fixed. "I know."

Further conversation is forestalled by a quiet knock on the door. It opens to reveal Spicer again. "Detective Superintendent? Two of your team are here."

Eve, Grace assumes, from what Boyd said earlier, and – presumably – Spencer.

Boyd sounds weary as he retorts, "Well, send them in, then, man, for God's sake."

"Sir."

"They must have driven on blues the whole way," Grace muses aloud, as Spicer withdraws for a moment.

He reappears, saying to whoever's behind him, "In here."

Eve leads the way, her calf-length leather coat swinging as she strides in. Spencer is right behind her, his features set into the perpetually grumpy mask that Grace knows means absolutely nothing. Getting to her feet, she's almost surprised to find herself being tightly hugged by the other woman. It doesn't help her physical aches and pains, but it does quite a lot to soothe the considerable emotional battering she's received. Stepping back, Eve says, "My God, look at the state of you… both of you."

Boyd is on his feet, too, but he has edged back, placing his chair between himself and the newcomers, as if to prevent any further outbreak of unsolicited hugging. His tone is dry as he says, "And hello to you, too."

Spencer looks him up and down. "You look like shit. Sir."

"Thanks, Spence."

Eagle-eyed, Eve asks him, "What have you done to your hand?"

"Oh." Boyd holds it up again. "Slight altercation with a broken window."

"The police doctor is waiting to see him," Grace puts in. "Apparently we've both got to go to hospital for chest x-rays and all that sort of thing."

As Boyd gives her a sharp look, Spencer shakes his head and addresses Eve. "What did I say? We let them out of our sight for a couple of bloody days, and all hell breaks loose."

-oOo-

Wrapped in a large, scratchy white towel, Grace is sitting on one of the locker room's benches examining the waterproof dressing on her leg. It seems to have survived the long, hot shower, as promised. A knock on the outer door makes her look up. Eve's voice inquires, "Safe to come in?"

"Of course," she confirms. She may not be looking altogether her best, she decides, but at least she is now clean.

Eve appears from the corridor carrying an armful of folded clothes. She says, "The desk sergeant is a large, terrifying but actually very nice Glaswegian lady. She organised this lot for you from somewhere. Not sure how – I only understood about one word in ten."

"Oh."

Putting down her burden, Eve also sits down on the bench. "So, how are you, Grace? Really?"

"Shaky," she admits. She takes a deep breath, hoping it will help. In explanation, she adds, "The fire… and Zoe… poor Zoe."

Eve looks momentarily confused. "Zoe? Oh, the officer who died?"

Grace nods, struggling with too-recent memories. "They tried so hard to save her – Boyd and Donaldson – but…"

"Nothing they could do," Eve says, almost brusque. Gentler, she continues, "From what I've been told by the duty pathologist, if she didn't suffer a massive haemothorax caused by a traumatic aortic rupture, I'd be very surprised."

"It's my fault." Grace rasps. The words seem to force themselves out of her, as if they refuse to be contained any longer. "It's all my fault, Eve."

Her colleague looks both surprised and sceptical. "How on earth could _any_ of this possibly be your fault, Grace?"

"She's dead because of _me_ ," Grace insists. " _I_ was the one who persuaded Donaldson to leave his post and go into the village. We needed milk. Oh Christ, Eve… a young woman is dead because we needed _milk_." Her throat feels as if it's closing, as if even minimal breathing will soon become a complete impossibility. "The killer must have been watching the cottage, must have been waiting for an opportunity to… to…"

As the guttural sobs start to wrack her, she's dimly aware of slim arms going around her, of being drawn against the sudden comforting warmth of a living, breathing body. Unable to do anything else, Grace buries her head into Eve's shoulder and cries. It's shock and grief, it's the accumulated stress of every uncertain hour since the whole nightmare began. It's Zoe lying dead on the gravel; it's the shining shards of glass, the dark, serpentine smoke and the flames that gave life to it. It's everything that's happened since that very first night.

How long she cries for, Grace isn't sure, but as the emotional storm starts to pass, she becomes vaguely aware that the front of Eve's dark grey blouse is thoroughly soaked, that she's twisted into an uncomfortable position that's sending little stabs of pain through her back, and that someone – Eve – is murmuring soft reassurances almost straight into her ear. Desperate sobs turn to melancholy snuffles, and eventually she's able to raise her head, to exert enough force for the enveloping arms to release allowing her to straighten up again. Miserable and mortified, she mutters, "I'm sorry."

Eve's voice is thick with emotion. "Oh, Grace… don't be silly."

Not able yet to look at the younger woman, she mumbles, "I don't seem to have a hankie…"

An apparently clean but very crumpled tissue appears in her field of vision. "Here."

It helps. Less congested, Grace manages, "What a terrible, _terrible_ mess…"

"It is," Eve confirms, "but it's not _your_ mess, Grace. Boyd's absolutely spitting feathers over Donaldson disobeying orders. Last I saw, he was bawling out a very embarrassed-looking Chief Inspector."

"Oh, God…" Scrunching the now-damp tissue into an ever-tighter ball, Grace shakes her head. "I'd better go and – "

"No," Eve interrupts, ever-pragmatic. "What you need to do is get dressed and sort yourself out. Let Boyd do whatever it is _he_ needs to do. That Sergeant – Spicer? – he said it was Boyd who got you and Zoe out of the fire."

Grace nods. "He did. I don't remember the last time I was that frightened. The flames, Eve, and the smoke…"

"You're lucky," is the quiet, sober reply. "If the place had been torched while you were asleep…"

"Oh, I know." Again, Grace thinks of Gail. Something else occurs to her, something that suddenly seems terribly important. "Your suitcase… it was in the bedroom… Oh, Eve, I'm sorry…"

Eve couldn't look more incredulous. "You're worried about _that_ …? Seriously?"

The mundane realities of the situation are beginning to assert themselves, sliding into her mind in the gaps between the visceral horrors of the day. "I suppose everything's gone… my purse, my house keys… everything."

"All those things can be replaced – _you_ can't," Eve tells her. "You and Boyd, you got out alive, that's what matters."

"Zoe didn't. She wanted to join the CCU. She said she'd had enough of witness protection. She was going to ask Boyd if he'd take her if she transferred to the Met. I told her…" Grace hears her voice wobble, "I told her to talk to him. And then… then she was dead."

"Come on," Eve says, standing up, "let's get you dressed, and then let's find you a cup of hot, sweet tea."

Staring, she asks, "How will that help?"

The reply is a slight shrug and, "I don't know, Grace… but it can't do any harm, can it?"

-oOo-

There's a small, grim canteen on the second floor of the building that reminds Grace of times long past. Once, proper meals might have been served over a proper counter. Now, a couple of vending machines are positioned in one corner, and a very basic kitchen area fills another. A cheap fridge, kettle and microwave seem to be the main amenities, and they all look well-used. Five or six uniformed Essex officers are seated around a table at the far end of the room, and beyond them there is a sorry-looking Christmas tree with drooping branches and an over-abundance of sparkly plastic ornaments. Their conversation is hushed, and they keep their heads well down. Grace understands. They have lost one of their own.

"Tea," Eve says, handing her a disposable cup, and then leading the way to another table, one a good distance away from the subdued knot of local officers. Sitting down, she says, "So, today aside, how has it been?"

"Difficult," Grace admits, slipping into an adjacent chair and adjusting the neck of her borrowed ribbed sweater. It's tight, a little too uncomfortable, but it is clean and warm. "Lots of stressful moments interspersed with long periods of mind-numbing boredom."

A sympathetic nod. "And His Lordship? Predictably grumpy?"

"Not _all_ the time." Honesty makes her add, "I think most of the time he was making a genuine effort to be as bearable as possible."

"Well, that's good, then."

"Yes." Sipping her tea, which is, indeed, hot and sweet, Grace finally adds, "I have a bone to pick with you."

A picture of bemused innocence, Eve inquires, "You do?"

"I do," she confirms, putting down her cup.

"Shall I just guess, or…?"

"Oh, I think you can guess," Grace says, fixing her with an inimical glare. "A certain item of… night attire… that inexplicably found its way into the bottom of the suitcase?"

Eve's bland expression doesn't change. "Ah. That."

"That," Grace confirms, remembering her surprise when she reached the bottom of the suitcase and found the article in question. "What on _earth_ were you thinking?"

Eve shrugs and smirks. "Well, it was just lying there in the drawer doing nothing…"

"With good reason!"

The smirk only increases. "Did he like it?"

The image of Boyd's startled face flits through her mind. It's followed by other, more… intimate… memories. Ones best not dwelt upon at that particular moment. As disdainful as possible, Grace replies, "I never wore it."

Eve looks reproachful. "That's not an answer, Grace. Or rather, it is, but it's not _the_ answer."

"It's the only one you're going to get. And don't think you can infer _anything_ from that." Her gaze strays again to the officers near the Christmas tree, and any vague notion of humour evaporates in an instant. A bright, ambitious young woman is dead, and she and Eve are…

"Grace?"

"It's nothing," she lies, not wanting to be told again that none of it is her fault. Of _course_ it's her fault – partially, at least.

The canteen door opens, drawing her attention. Boyd followed by Spencer. The former, it seems, has also had a shower and been provided with clean clothes. Uniform, even. Black trousers, crisp white shirt augmented by dark epaulettes with a superintendent's silver and red crowns attached, no tie. Spencer gives them a thin smile of greeting and goes straight to the vending machines while Boyd heads past them to go and speak to his fellow officers. The table is too far away for any of the subsequent conversation to be audible, but his body language suggests to Grace that he is offering his condolences. Solidarity, she thinks. There may be intense rivalry between individual forces, but when a police officer is killed in the line of duty…

Spencer places two more cups on the table and sits down next to Eve. He says, "The dead guy was one Derek Butler, record as long as your arm dating right back to the 'eighties. He was fancied for the murder of an East End publican in the late 'nineties, but all the evidence was circumstantial and then someone else coughed for it. Care to guess who?"

"No idea," Eve says, "but I assume you're dying to tell us, Spence, so…"

"Alex Proctor," he announces.

Eve still looks blank. "Who is…?"

"Right at the centre of all of this," Grace tells her. "So that's the link? Proctor – "

" – took the rap," Spencer confirms with a nod. "Odds are, someone he _really_ couldn't say no to told him to."

Boyd joins them, settling next to Grace with a barely a grunt of greeting. Reaching for the remaining cup with a hand that's conspicuously bandaged he says, "Spence has told you?"

Grace nods. "Yes. Derek Butler."

"Wife-beater, amateur housebreaker and professional thug-for-hire," he says with clear distaste. "In and out of prison since he was nineteen. Nasty piece of work, by anyone's standards."

"Including Jack Bailey's?" she asks.

Boyd nods. "Seems so, doesn't it? Butler rented a flat in Shoreditch. Marshall's lot are turning it over as we speak."

"He was a firebug, too," Spencer puts in. "Two of his convictions were for arson. _Unofficially_ , the sleeves of the jacket he was wearing when he died show clear traces of petrol."

"So that's that, then," Grace says, staring into the half-empty depths of her cup. "He killed both Gail Hillier and Paul Woodward, then Bailey."

"Then stabbed Finch and set fire to the cottage," Spencer adds. He snorts. "At least the taxpayer won't have to foot the bill for a trial."

"I don't like it," Boyd says. All three of them look at him. He shakes his head. "It's too neat and tidy."

"Well, sometimes these sorts of things _are_ ," Eve says. "Oh, come on, Boyd, we've all been involved in cases that turn out to be a lot simpler than they first appear, haven't we?"

"I'm buying that he's the killer," he says, fiddling with the rim of his cup, "and I'm even buying _why_ he's the killer, but something about the rest… just doesn't ring true."

Once again, the canteen door opens. This time it's DS Spicer, followed by the FME, Reid, who walk into the room. The latter advances with a firm, no-nonsense smile. "Ah; Detective Superintendent, Doctor Foley, there you are. There's a car waiting to take you to Colchester General. There's an x-ray machine there with both your names on."

"Just what we need," Boyd mutters, "a police doctor who thinks he's a fucking comedian."

-oOo-

It's mid-afternoon by the time they find themselves in the x-ray department waiting on hard plastic chairs, and around them the hospital is growing busier with every passing minute. Seated side-by-side, they don't talk much. It's too open a public space to freely discuss the day's events, and Grace, for one, is far too weary to make herself think too deeply about any of it. It's only in a determined effort to keep her mind from continually straying back to Zoe that she finally says, "Do you think they'll manage to salvage any of our stuff from the cottage?"

Boyd is busy examining a nasty-looking graze on his unbandaged hand. He casts her only the briefest of glances. "Doubt it. You saw how far the fire had spread by the time the fire brigade turned up."

"I suppose I'd better report my credit cards as lost," she says. Inane. Better than thinking about all the things that really matter.

Boyd grunts. A moment later, he says in a much lower voice, "About last night…"

Avoiding the inquisitive gaze of an elderly lady in a hospital wheelchair who arrived just after they did, Grace stares at the wall opposite. White, featureless. "It's fine, Boyd. We don't need to talk about it."

"Oh." A long, uncomfortable pause. He clears his throat. "Well, good. Okay, then."

It feels as if it all happened a whole lifetime ago, yet just twelve hours ago they were squeezed together in that ridiculously small bed, languishing gently in a sleepy post-coital stupor. Doesn't seem possible. Lowering her gaze to the floor, Grace wonders how long it will take for her to banish the most uncomfortable of the too-recent memories trying to crowd in on her. How long it will be before she can't feel the ghostly impression of his hands on her skin, can't smell him, taste him; before she can't –

"Actually," he says, the word loud and abrupt enough to draw the rapt attention of the wheelchair-bound old woman waiting on the other side of the corridor, "no. It's not okay. Grace…"

It takes a lot of nerve and quite a lot of physical effort to turn her head to gaze at him. "What?"

Quieter, but no less intense, he says, "I can't just leave it… not like this, and I don't believe _you_ can, either."

"I told you," Grace says, surprised by how calm and mechanical her voice sounds, "if it was just last night, that's all right."

"But what if it's _not_?" Boyd demands, startling her with his vehemence. "What if it could be more?"

A woman in a pale blue uniform appears from one of the side rooms. "Grace Foley…?"

"Here," she says, getting to her feet.

The woman smiles at her. "The radiographer's ready for you."

-oOo-

When she returns to the corridor, Boyd has vanished. She glances up and down, but there is no sign of him. The elderly woman sitting in the hospital wheelchair asks, "Looking for the nice policeman, are you, dear?"

It's a… unique description. Not one Grace would generally associate with him. Nodding cautiously, she says, "Yes."

The woman in the wheelchair points to a closed door. "Took him in there a couple of minutes ago. He asked me to tell you to wait for him. Husband, is it?"

" _Colleague_ ," Grace says, a little too forcefully. That's what he is. A _colleague_. A friend, too, when they are not at each other's throats over some petty difference of opinion, but nothing more. One foolish night means absolutely nothing, whatever he might be trying to ill-advisedly convince himself.

"Oh." A considering look. "Sure?"

"Quite sure," Grace tells her. "I think I would have remembered if we'd ever been married."

The old lady cackles in delight. "I should say you would. Handsome brute. If I were twenty years younger…"

How on earth, she asks herself, returning to the hard seats, does he do it? For a man who can be so prickly, so downright rude…

"Esme Dalton," the woman introduces herself, "Mrs."

"Oh. Grace. Grace Foley."

A suspicious frown and, "Irish?"

"My grandparents were," she confirms, wondering how long she's going to have to wait for Boyd.

"Thought so. Got that look about you." Esme tilts her head, stares intently. A few seconds later she says, "The very worst things always work themselves out in the end, you know, dear. Whatever it is, however bad it is, it will pass. In time."

Wondering if the old lady is a mind-reader, Grace says, "Sometimes it's difficult to believe that."

"I know." A small, sage nod. "I was watching the two of you. Before. He cares more than you know. If you forget about whatever it is that's stopping you and just let him look after you, I'm sure you won't regret it."

Only half-joking, Grace asks, "Do you read tea-leaves, too?"

The way Esme immediately scowls makes it quite clear that she has caused offence. "One day you'll be as old as me, and when you are, you'll be glad if there's someone left who gives a damn whether you're alive or dead."

"I'm sorry," Grace says, and she means it. She sighs. "It's been a very difficult day. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Hm."

"Someone died," she adds, not knowing why she feels the need to share. "A young police officer. She could have been my daughter. Such a waste of life."

"Terrible times we live in," Esme says after a pause, and from her it doesn't sound trite. Red-rimmed grey eyes regard Grace with intelligent curiosity. "You don't look like a policewoman."

"I'm not. I'm a… well, I work with the police."

"My house was burgled," Esme announces. "Last month. I got back from my son's house, and the place had been ransacked. I said to my friend Margery…"

Grace only half-listens to the barrage of complaints. She murmurs appropriate noises in the right places and thinks about Boyd, about whatever it was he might have gone on to say had she not been called for her x-rays. There hasn't been the time or opportunity for them to talk about the events of the previous night, and equally little time to even think about them, and she's still not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

"…and then the man at the community centre had the cheek to say…"

It was so wrong, but it had felt… so right. So many things about the circumstances surrounding it had been wrong, but kissing him, being kissed _by_ him, making love with him and lying in his arms afterwards… that had felt right. Incredibly, perfectly _right_. It couldn't possibly work between them, though, even if they wanted it to. Could it?

"Your policeman's back," Esme remarks.

Grace looks up. Boyd is bearing down on them, his brows drawn together in thought, his stride long and purposeful. She looks at him, and she knows he's found the missing piece of the puzzle that has been eluding him. As he draws to a stop, he answers her silent question with a single word: "Spicer."

-oOo-

Huddled in a borrowed corner of the open-plan space assigned to the station's handful of CID officers, all four of them stare at the database information displayed on the screen of Eve's laptop. Spencer jabs a blunt forefinger at the screen and says, "Deptford."

"Between 'ninety-two and 'ninety-six," Eve adds. To Boyd, who has paused in his laborious two-fingered typing, she says, "It doesn't prove anything."

"I spent over six years at Deptford," he says, the fingers of his left hand now drumming a quick, irritable tattoo on the wooden desk, "and I know just how many coppers Jacky Bailey had in his back pocket."

"Oh, come _on_ …"

"Operation _Countryman_ wasn't the end of corruption in the Met," Grace says, "we all know that. Look how recently _Tiberius_ was mounted."

"There's still no proof of anything," Eve argues, and at the withering look Spencer gives her, adds, "I'm not defending anyone, I'm just saying it's a big leap to make without any evidence."

"There's fuck-all evidence for most of what's already been assumed about this case," Boyd tells her. He glares at the laptop's screen and continues, "We _know_ four people have died – five if you count Butler himself – and we _know_ someone burned that cottage to the ground. Everything else is smoke and bloody mirrors."

"There are also serious questions we have absolutely _no_ assumptions for," Grace points out.

"Where's the knife that was used to stab Zoe being the one that really interests me," Eve says.

"And how and why was Spicer on the scene so quickly this morning," Boyd adds. "Marshall didn't send him, and I'm not buying his cock and bull story about coming to check on us because we weren't answering our phones."

"Nor me," Spencer agrees. He folds his arms. "Let's say Butler killed Hillier, Woodward and Finch, and set light to the cottage. What does that leave us with?"

Eve shrugs. "Who killed Jack Bailey, and why, and who killed Butler himself… and why."

"Bailey and Butler are _associated_ killings," Grace tells them. "They're not part of the pattern. The first two killings are directly linked to Richard Hare's need for revenge, as is the arson attack on the cottage that targeted me and Boyd. Poor Zoe was… collateral damage."

"Agreed," Boyd says. "Wrong place, wrong time."

"They knew too much," Spencer suggests, looking at Boyd. "Bailey and Butler. They were killed purely to stop them talking."

"Exactly."

Eve nods slowly. "All right, I'll buy that as a working hypothesis. In which case, who killed Butler?"

Grace glances at Boyd before she says, "Carl Spicer."

-oOo-

A bitter December wind is blowing through the locked compound at the rear of the police station. Huddled in her borrowed coat, Grace stands on the leeward side of Spencer, but she's still shivering as she watches Eve open the boot of Spicer's car. Boyd and Marshall are flanking Spicer himself, their stony silence speaking volumes. Eve, wearing white paper coveralls acquired from Reid, leans into the boot, reaches in with gloved hands to move whatever articles lie within. It doesn't take her long to straighten up, turn, and give a silent nod.

It is Marshall who says, "Carl Spicer, I am arresting you on suspicion of…"

Grace moves forward with Spencer, stopping close enough to be able to crane to see what Eve has found. In the boot of the car there is a black plastic rubbish bag, now partially open, and within that, a set of dark overalls of the type she has often seen used at muddy, outdoor crime scenes. Protruding from folds in the navy cloth is the stag-horn handle and part of the blade of an old-fashioned hunting knife. Grace can see that it's been perfunctorily wiped on something, but enough dark dried blood remains to make her stomach tighten in a mix of nausea and fury. Next to her, Spencer exhales loudly but says nothing.

Turning, she stares straight at Spicer. Between Marshall and Boyd, he looks slight and unimpressive. He looks straight back at her, his strange pale eyes empty, his face devoid of emotion. No anger, no fear, no righteous indignation. Nothing.

Marshall takes hold of Spicer's upper arm. There's no doubt about just how hard his fingers dig into the other man's bicep, but his voice is tight and controlled as he says, "Come on."

Boyd is looking at Eve. Like Spicer, he is expressionless.

-oOo-

 _Cont…_


	7. Camden Lock

**SEVEN - Camden Lock**

It's over. It's really over. Grace knows it's the truth when she is given formal permission to return to her own home, to pick up her life again as if none of it ever happened. Spencer drives her there, hovers long enough for her to retrieve the spare key from its hiding place and to ask her if she needs anything, then disappears into the early-evening sleet that has taken hold. Left with a huge sense of anti-climax, Grace picks her way through the familiar downstairs rooms of the house, ignoring the strings of Christmas cards, the glitter of tinsel and the terrible empty feeling inside her. There are questions – so many questions – that still need to be answered, but it looks likely that Carl Spicer will be officially charged with Butler's murder, and everything else… everything else seems to be being treated like mere formalities by all the people who didn't live minute-by-minute through the nightmare themselves.

The milk in the fridge has turned into a stinking, lumpy substance somewhere between yoghurt and cheese. She pours it away, crying almost silently for Zoe Finch. Mark Donaldson is facing a disciplinary hearing at the very least, one that could end his career, and to her that feels every bit as unfair as Zoe dying because there was no milk left for breakfast.

Spencer thinks Spicer also killed Jack Bailey. Grace isn't so sure. The evidence collected from Butler's flat is being carefully examined by a Metropolitan Police CSI team, but whether it will provide any definitive answers…

The phone – the house phone – starts to ring as she's trying to decide whether eat or to simply give up on the evening and go to bed. She answers its strident summons with weary caution. "Hello?"

"Hi." Baritone. Quiet. Subdued. "You okay?"

"I have no idea," she answers truthfully. "You?"

"I'm in the bath," he says, which is not at all an answer to her question. He seems to rally. "Thought I'd give you a call, see how you are. Some fucker's broken into my garden shed and had it away with the croquet set. Can you believe that?"

The deliberate deflection into the absurd is so characteristic that it's almost reassuring. Grace shakes her head. "That you own – _used_ to own – a croquet set, Boyd? No, not for a moment."

"It was Mary's," he tells her.

"Of _course_ it was," she soothes. It's not quite up to their usual standard of banter, but she thinks they can be forgiven for that. Under the circumstances. Moving to her favourite armchair, she asks, "Does that explain the attempted break-in, then?"

"I'm inclined to think so. Completely unconnected." A faint sound of splashing is followed by, "What day is it?"

She frowns, trying to recall. "Saturday. I think."

"Thank Christ for that. I _really_ wasn't looking forward to getting up for work tomorrow."

Staring at the lifeless television set in the corner of the room, Grace hears herself say, "We should talk."

His reply is too quick. "We _are_ talking."

She sighs, intending him to hear it. "You know what I mean, Boyd."

"Yeah," he concedes, the near-exhaustion heavy in his voice, "I do; and you're right, we should."

"Not tonight," she tells him before he can think about suggesting it. They're both far too tired to undertake such a sensitive and potentially hazardous conversation. "Tomorrow?"

"Lunch?" he proposes. "We could go to that little place in Camden?"

Grace thinks she knows the place he means. A small, surprisingly affordable Italian restaurant not far from Camden Market. An accidental discovery they made together several months ago and have yet to return to. " _Franco's_? All right. How about I meet you at Camden Lock at say, half-twelve?"

"Fine," Boyd agrees. She hears him yawn. "At least I can have a bit of a lie-in."

"You and me both. I didn't get much sleep last ni…" Grace breaks off as she realises just how ambiguous the innocently-intended words sound. The fierce heat of his body, the intoxicating smoothness of his skin…

The amused snort in her ear makes it clear that she's far too late to save herself. "That's your own bloody fault for insisting on – "

"Stop," she tells him. "I'm not up to enduring your smutty schoolboy sense of humour, not at the moment."

"Suit yourself." Grace can almost hear the loose shrug that she can't see. "Grace?"

She sighs again. "What?"

"Nothing."

Ridiculous, infuriating man. She doesn't roll her eyes, but she comes dangerously close to it. "Goodnight, Boyd."

-oOo-

Despite still being several days away, Christmas is in full swing in Camden Lock and its associated streets. Hundreds of twinkling lights have been strung between the lamp-posts and along the span of the iconic bridge with its huge green and yellow sign, and more festive decorations than it's possible to comprehend make the clustered market stalls look even more busy and distracting than usual. For Grace, who has loved the place since her very first visit to London in her far-off student days, the effect is magical. Not even the loud, jostling crowds of shoppers and sight-seers take the edge off her simple delight. There's still a heaviness in her heart that she knows won't pass easily, but for the first time in days she finds herself thinking about happier, much more seasonal things. Maybe tonight she will call her sister-in-law and arrange to go north for Christmas after all. Her favourite nephew and his young children will be there, and the thought makes her smile as she manoeuvres through the endless throng of people.

She sees Boyd long before he sees her. Standing at the railings above the lock itself, apparently lost in thought as he contemplates the canal, he is somehow both striking and completely inconspicuous. Hands buried deep in the pockets of his long winter coat, he is a tall, solitary figure amongst the natural ebb and flow of people. Approaching at an oblique angle, Grace can't help emitting a soft snort of amusement at how well-groomed he looks. The thick rough stubble has gone, his goatee beard is neatly-trimmed, and there's absolutely no doubt in her mind that the arresting shock of spiky silver hair has been coaxed into retaining its current perfect order with some kind of expensive male hair-styling product. Vanity, thy name truly is Peter Boyd.

He turns before she can catch him by surprise, his thoughtful expression becoming more animated as he sees her. "Grace."

"Delays on the Northern Line," she tells him, though in truth she isn't late. Not quite. She's startled when he steps forward, grasps her lightly by the elbows and kisses her gently but decisively on the cheek. From him, it's an unprecedented form of greeting, and she wonders if she looks as disconcerted by it as she feels. Then, he's renowned for being the sort of man who's not afraid to take any bull firmly by the horns, so perhaps it's not really that surprising that he should –

"Spicer's made a full confession," he tells her, releasing his grip. "Marshall called me first thing this morning. Not only has he admitted killing Butler, he's admitted he told Jacky Bailey where we were."

"But not that he killed him, too?"

Boyd shakes his head. "He's insisting that honour goes to Butler. Self-defence, allegedly. Seems Jacky was far from happy with him for the trouble he was causing. Apparently he was gunning for Butler the night he died."

"Makes sense, I suppose," Grace says, moving to lean back against the rail. "And the reason Spicer killed Butler instead of simply arresting him…?"

"Dennis informed him that Butler knew who it was who told Jacky where we were." Boyd pauses, then continues, "He decided he had to make sure Butler never parted with that information, and when he couldn't find him, he started watching the cottage. He swears he intended to stop Butler before he got to us, but when it came to it, he was just too far away to do anything."

Grace snorts. "Well, of course he does."

"That, at least, might be true," Boyd replies with a shrug. "Not even _bent_ copper like cop-killers, Grace."

"And presumably," she muses, "he planned to make sure that Dennis then became the chief suspect."

Boyd nods. "That would be my best guess. He knew what Marshall thought of the Baileys, knew it wouldn't be difficult to plant the idea in his head that _Dennis_ took Butler out. With no hard evidence to the contrary, who wouldn't be strongly tempted to believe he was killed in revenge for Jacky's murder?"

"And Spicer would have just got on with his life," Grace says, not able to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"Better, he would have got on with his life without ever having to dance to the Baileys' tune again."

Shaking her head, Grace says, "Do you know what really makes me angry? The man responsible for all of it is sitting smugly in a cell knowing that he at least partially achieved his goal."

"Richard Hare?"

"Who else?"

"Yeah, well… prison officers don't like cop-killers, either, Grace."

She knows what he's implying. A door that should be locked accidentally left unsecured for a few strategic moments, or an officer briefly called away to deal with something else leaving Hare to look after himself. Hare, who, despite never being charged with the offence, everyone knows has always been strongly suspected of the rape and murder of at least one pre-pubescent girl. Prison justice is merciless. For once she ignores her strongly-held principles and says, "Good."

"Marshall thinks Spicer will take the easy way out if he gets the chance," Boyd says, putting his hands back in his coat pockets. "I tend to agree with him, too. If he gets sent down, he'll spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder as a vulnerable prisoner."

"I wish I could say I gave a damn," Grace says, thinking of Zoe, "but right now…"

"Yeah," he agrees. He watches her in silence for a moment, then says, "Lunch?"

"Would you mind if we didn't?" she asks, surprising herself. Boyd frowns and she continues, "At least, not immediately. It's so nice to be outside and… free."

He looks at the crowds of people, his expression sceptical. Then he shrugs. "Whatever you like."

"We can walk _and_ talk," she encourages. "It _is_ possible, you know. Even _your_ poor male brain should be able to handle that negligible amount of multi-tasking."

He gives her a sideways look. "Someone's obviously feeling much more like her old self today."

"I'm getting there," Grace admits, though she suspects it will be a long, long time before she even starts to come to terms with Zoe's death. "Well?"

"God's sake," Boyd mutters, but straightens up and offers her an arm. The look that goes with it suggests more than mild challenge.

So be it. She takes the proffered arm and asks, "So…? Where on earth do we start?"

They start to walk, no particular destination in mind, and he says, "Christmas."

Grace frowns. "Christmas?"

"Christmas," he confirms, not looking at her. "Christmas is as good a place as any. Come to Hampshire with me. I've spoken to Joyce, and as far as she's concerned, the more the merrier."

"You've…?" she echoes, trying to process the words.

Boyd nods, then says, "Don't glare at me like that – I haven't committed you to anything. I just asked if she'd be happy for me to bring a… friend… with me. She was. Is."

"But…" It's a weak protest, mired in confusion.

"Yes?" Again, there is challenge in the way Boyd looks at her. "Way I see it, Grace, we can talk ourselves round in endless circles from now until bloody Doomsday without getting anywhere, or we can just… well, _do_ something."

"'Do something'?" she says, wondering where her long, complicated pre-planned conversation has disappeared to. It seems to have foundered on the rocks of Peter Boyd's brash impulsivity. "Do… what, exactly?"

"Don't be exasperating," he tells her, but his tone is almost… genial. "You and me, a decent bottle of red wine and an open fire. Fancy it?"

"It's not unappealing," she admits, still struggling with the unexpected direction things are going in, "but I think we should – "

"No, we shouldn't," Boyd interrupts, typically and predictably impatient. "At least, not in the way you mean. Too much talk, Grace. That's always been your bloody problem."

"In the same way that too little has always been yours?" she snipes back. She knows where she is when they are bickering, and that can only be a good thing. Can't it?

"Touché," he says. The dark eyes survey her for a long, loaded moment. "Do know what my biggest regret from the night-before-last is?"

 _That_ night… A coldness starts to form in her chest. Perhaps she's somehow misunderstood the last few minutes? Trying to keep any trace of apprehension out of her voice, Grace says, "No, what?"

Those mesmerising eyes are sparkling now with the reflection of so many twinkling Christmas lights. "That I never got to see you in that little blue satin number."

It's been years since such a strong flush rose in her cheeks. Incapable of anything else, she mutters, "Oh."

"Come to Joyce's with me," he urges, indefatigable. "Christmas in the New Forest. You'll love it, Grace."

Sceptical, she inquires, "A romantic break… in your step-mother's house?"

"It's a _very_ big house." Boyd stops, forcing her to stop with him. A harassed-looking couple trying to cope with two small, fractious children glare at them as they are obliged to suddenly change direction to avoid a collision. Boyd treats them to the long, well-practised, coolly appraising look he usually reserves for truculent suspects and they move on without a word. He looks down at her. "Well? What have you got to lose?"

 _Everything_ , a quiet voice whispers in her head. "Do you _really_ want me to answer that, Boyd?"

"Possibly not." Edging back from the main thoroughfare and drawing her with him, he says, "You asked me if it was worth the risk, remember?"

"And you said the stakes were too high," she accuses.

"No," Boyd contradicts, shaking his head, "I said the stakes were high – and they _are_ – but I never said they were _too_ high. Come to Hampshire, Grace. It's an ideal opportunity for us to spend some time together. Away from work, I mean. If it works, it works. If it doesn't… well, at least we'll know."

"That actually makes rather a lot of sense," she admits, the temptation to simply give in and agree growing ever-stronger, "but – "

"No 'buts'," he interrupts, characteristically autocratic. "A straight yes or no is what I'm looking for at this point. We try, or we don't. Well?"

The feel of his body against hers, skin against skin, the hungry, intense look in his eyes when he… when they... Grace swallows hard, pins him with a defiant stare and demands, "Kiss me."

His eyebrows rise. " _Here_? _Now_?" A baffled pause. "Why?"

Making the most of regaining the upper hand, she shrugs. "It's more fun than tossing a coin."

A puzzled frown. "You've lost me."

"Just kiss me, Boyd," Grace orders, "and if sparks fly, the answer's yes."

He tilts his head a fraction. "And if they don't?"

It's her turn to raise an eyebrow. "You need to ask?"

Once again, Boyd shakes his head, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and complete bewilderment, and then he obeys. Right in front of a multi-coloured shopfront, a stone's throw from the canal, with dozens upon dozens of Christmas shoppers walking past in both directions, and it is, without any doubt at all, one of the gentlest, most thorough and sensual kisses Grace has ever shared with anyone. At first.

Sparks are ephemeral things that blaze brightly for an instant and then die away leaving no trace of their existence. Flames are hotter and fiercer, and they burn for much, much longer.

 _\- the end -_

* * *

 _Happy Christmas/Festive Season 2018.  
Thank you so much for reading._  
 _\- J xx_


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